


They'll Chain Our Hands and Close The Door (There's Nothing Worse Than Wanting More)

by personalized_radio



Series: Love In The Middle Of A Firefight [4]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Used
Genre: (including of children), A LOT OF TORTURE, Alternate Universe - The Youngblood Chronicles, Ambiguous Relationships, Better Living Industries, Between worlds, Bonding, Capture, Child Abuse, Child Death, Children being kept in captivity and tortured, City Living, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Desert Living, Family Death, Friendship, Gen, Guest Appearances by: Elton John, Guest Appearances by: Fall Out Boy, Guest Appearances by: Foxes, Imprisonment, Love, M/M, Music Is So Important, Original Character Death(s), Rape/Non-con Elements lightly implied between tortured and torturer, Rebellion, SERIOUSLY DON'T READ IF TORTURE BOTHERS, Seriously kids are hurt a lot in this i didnt mean for that ot happen, This comes with all the umbrella warnings for the Killjoys 'verse - Be Warned, This comes with all the umbrella warnings for the Youngblood 'verse - Be Warned, Torture, adopted families, big brother syndrome, corrupt society, hard living man, though it isn't particularly well written torture, thoughts of suicide and murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/personalized_radio/pseuds/personalized_radio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob didn't have an interesting story when The Kids asked him to tell them about himself. By that time, he didn't remember anything <em>to</em> tell them, just a kid he held dear to his heart and a black hatred for Better Living the likes of which he could never have survived without Ravenous. Other than those two things, though, he didn't remember much at all of his time outside of Linda Vista.<br/>Bob’s life before Ravenous, before Linda Vista and Frank and Iero, before The Black Parade Rebellion, started like most kids unlucky enough to be born in Better Living’s time - with tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They'll Chain Our Hands and Close The Door (There's Nothing Worse Than Wanting More)

**Author's Note:**

> i. am. so. sorry. i am so so so so so sorry this took so long for me to get out. thank you to everyone who commented asking about this update because you guys made it possible for me to keep going. i was convinced people had completely forgotten because its been SO LONG and I apologize for that. i was working on the BBB and it ended up taking a lot more energy than expected (due to graduation and college stuff happening!). Anyway, this is it. 
> 
> PLEASE READ WARNINGS:
> 
> Usually i don't put these here, but this installment deals with intense torture, including the torture of children (between the ages of eighteen and older, and twelve years of age) as well as the implications of children under the age of ten being kidnapped and experimented on. There are other warnings, but everything else is about as bad as it gets in the first three fics. I just wanted to warn about the torture scenes. Only two are really gotten into in detail, but none the less - be warned.

Bob didn't have an interesting story when The Kids asked him to tell them about himself. By that time, he didn't remember anything _to_ tell them, just a kid he held dear to his heart and a black hatred for Better Living the likes of which he could never have survived without Ravenous. Other than those two things, though, he didn't remember much at all of his time outside of Linda Vista.

Bob’s life before Ravenous, before Linda Vista and Frank and Iero, before The Black Parade Rebellion, started like most kids unlucky enough to be born in Better Living’s time - with tragedy.

-

Bob grew up between worlds, one could say. His mom was a Trader, his dad a Tumbleweed in The Used crew who spent weeks at a time in the city with his family, or the desert with his crew. Bob spent the first five years of his life with his city family, learning the alleys and sneaking food from the family stores to give to any of the kids who looked like they needed it more than he did. His parents were well-off enough and he, being the offspring of both a healthy desert crew and a successful Trader, didn’t go hungry often. He didn’t complain when they did, but he wasn’t used to it like the other kids he saw on the streets, and so he wasn’t stingy with his food when he could spare some. He stayed in the city until his fifth birthday, which marked him as old enough for his mom to consent to him leaving the safety of her city to see his father’s world - and get his desert name.

When the sun hit his skin for the first time, directly and lacking the screen of smog usually in between, it burned. Not in a painful way, but in the way that skin burned, tingled, when being cleansed of grime and dirt.

“The sun.” His dad smiled, keeping a firm hand on Bob’s shoulder as he maneuvered around the big rocks blocking their special entry way into the city from the Better Living guards atop the wall. “It feels great, doesn’t it?”  
“Like it’s under my skin.” Bob explained, holding his arm out and looking at it closely. For all that it felt like the shining sphere in the sky was trying to burrow into his arm, the skin was still intact and warming. Once they were safe, his dad kneeled next to him and started slathering on a thick, white cream. The burning ceased, but the warmth stayed. Bob swore he could feel it moving in his veins, pressing right against the place where the city rested in him.

“Are you ready to meet your crew?”  
“ _My_ crew?” Bob gaped at him. He’d never had a _crew_ before. His family was the closest thing he’d gotten, but he knew that, while they were similar, they weren’t quite the same thing.

“You’re my son.” His dad laughed at him, deep and comforting, “What’s my family is your family. The Used crew is my crew, so,”  
“So it’s my crew.”

“Exactly. Good boy, Bob.”  
“Do I get a name?”

“Why do you think you’re here?” His dad teased, suddenly lifting Bob and tossing him up. Bob shrieked, clinging to his dad when he was immediately caught. His dad started laughing, and Bob was quick to join him, though his arms and legs didn’t uncling from around his arm and chest.

“So I get a name?”  
“Yeah, Bobby,” His dad nodded, squeezing him in his arms before he let him back down into the hot sand, “What do you want to name yourself?”  
“Something cool.” Bob decided, “Something that’ll make Better Living shake in their stupid boots.”  
“That’s my boy,” His dad ruffled his hair, getting dust in it, but Bob didn’t mind much. He grabbed his dad’s wrist and held on tight, letting him lead him out of the rocks and into the edges of a camp. Tents and little shacks cropped up in the pale sand to reveal people sitting or lying or talking to each other. They were bright, more color on them than Bob could remember seeing in his whole life in the city. There was red hair and blue hair and hair so green that Bob almost feared it was radioactive, tight pants that looked like they fit too tight and shirts that didn’t fall all the way to the waistline of their pants. Every person was a rainbow on wheels, some of them literally, and when Bob and his dad walked into camp, they all turned to look at him.  
“Crowd Surf!” Someone called out, a pretty lady with long, pink hair braided through with what looked like wire jogging up to them, “You’re back!

“Mystery Manor!” His father laughed, catching her and giving her a spin and a kiss on the cheek, “I missed you, sis.”  
“Don’t play with me,” She laughed, shoving at his face until he let her go. She put her hands on her hips and looked him over, “And where is your beautiful wife and the training Tumbleweeds?”  
“They stayed behind. This was a journey for Bob and I.”

“Bob?” She grinned, big and sparkling, and Bob couldn’t help but jump and wave his hand at her to get her attention.

“Hi, Mystery!”

“Ah,” She leaned down at the waist, her hair falling over her shoulder and turning the sunlight that pierced through the strands pink, “Could that really be my baby nephew? All grown up, I see. How’ya doin’, Bob?”  
“Good.” He nodded and laughed when she scooped him up and hugged him tight. He hadn’t gotten to see her in a few weeks, since she and a few of their usual city dwellers had gone to the desert while some of the desert dwellers had gone to the city. The Used were testing out sample groups of a cross-border crew the likes of which had never been seen before and Bob’s dad and aunt, and his mom’s side of the family, were lucky enough to be a part of it. Bob was the first of the, hopefully many, motorbabies to be born and raised in both the city and the desert, an attempt to familiarize new generations with both styles of living to close the gap between Used city born and Used desert born. “I get my name today!”  
“Your name?” She gasped, kissing his cheeks, “And what’s your name going to be, motorbaby?”  
“I dunno, yet.” He shrugged, offering his hand for her to hold when she let him down. He wished his hair was pink like hers, but he’d gotten his dad’s hair color instead - pale as the sun bleached sand. Everyone always said he’d gotten his mom’s eyes, light blue, and with all the paleness of himself, he felt almost like he didn’t belong in the desert. They were so bright, tanned skin from the sun and bright hair and dark eyes. He didn’t have those. Bob looked at his own clothes, drab browns and grays, ripped and torn and stretched but beyond better than what the other city kids wore.

His dad grabbed his other hand and they swung him through the camp, much to his delight, distracting him from his thoughts. They brought him to a tent in the middle of camp and Mystery settled him in the front flap, kneeling to hold his shoulders.

“This is where our leader lives.” She explained, brushing dust from his hair, “You and your dad are gonna go talk to her and she’ll help you pick out a name for yourself.”

“What if she can’t think of any?” Bob worried, playing with his fingers, “Or she doesn’t like me because I’m from the city? Uncle Rodry said a lot of desert born don’t like city born.”  
“She’ll love you.” His dad said firmly, “Just like we do. She loves everyone in her crew. That’s what ‘crew’ means.”

Mystery kissed his forehead and he nervously turned to the tent, gripping his father’s fingers tightly as they walked through it. The inside of the tent was dim, the light coming through the ten walls darkened by the material. In the back of the tent, a woman lay with a blanket drawn over her face.

“You’re sleeping the day away again, I see.” His dad said cheerfully, taking her jump up.

“Crowd Surf, you city sli-” She started loudly, only for her words to cut off abruptly when her eyes fell to him, “Slick and Span, is that who I think it is?”  
“Enemy,” Bob’s dad settled a hand on Bob’s head, firm and proud, “This is my son, Bob. Bob, this is the crew’s leader, Imaginary Enemy.”  
“Nice to meet you.” Bob said politely, offering his hand. She took it and, laughing, pulled him into a warm hug, like his mom’s or Mystery’s.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for quite a while now, Bob!” She crowed, dropping him back to the ground and looking him over, “The first of my crew born in the city. How exciting! If you’re here, it means tod _a_ y” she drew out the ‘a’ just long enough to make Bob smile, “is your birthday!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” He nodded, because his mom had taught him his manners, “I’ve five.”  
“Five!?” She clapped excitedly, “That means it’s naming day for you!”

“That’s right,” He puffed up his chest just a little, “I get my name today.”  
She crossed her legs and dropped to the ground next to him, resting her wait on her hands in the dirt and leaning back comfortably, “And what will your name be, little warrior?”

“Well,” He started, dropping down next to her. His dad set behind him and Bob noticed that he hadn’t said anything in a while. He looked up at him and his dad gave him an encouraging smile so Bob turned back to Enemy and bit his lip.  
“Mystery said you could help me pick one.”  
“I can do that,” She grinned at him, all orange hair sticking at odd angles and bright yellow lips, “Do you have any ideas?”  
“No,” He admitted, looking at the ground. He started to twist the hem of his pants like he wasn’t supposed to, stopped, and started again, “What if the desert doesn’t accept me?”

She laughed at him, leaning down until they were eye to eye, her hands bent on her knees, “Rule number one, motorbaby. The desert doesn’t accept those who don’t think they’re worthy. Touch your pulse.”  
Bob hesitated, but he held his arm out and pressed his fingers to his wrist, pressing down until he could feel his fast heart.

“Can you feel it, Bob?” She asked quietly, watching him with big green eyes, “Can you feel the sand in your veins?”  
“The sand?” Bob frowned, not quite what to say. He’d never felt sand before, let alone in his veins.

“You’re home, Bob.” She shook her head and adjusted his fingers, leaving her thumb close to his to feel it too. He closed his eyes, leaned back against his dad’s propped leg, and tried to feel the sand. Seconds passed, enough that he was close to giving up, not losing interest, but losing his courage. He didn’t want to know if the desert had accepted him. If it had, he’d have to leave to go back to his city eventually, and if it hadn’t, he’d never be able to properly join the desert sect of The Used.

“You’re just as home here, as you are in the city.” Enemy breathed, her face going lax and her eyes closing. She looked content and happy, the way Bob only really felt when he was drifting through alleys, trusting the city to lead him where he had to be, to keep him safe from Vixen and Draculoids. He loved that feeling, of being safe and wanted inside the city’s arms, and he wanted to feel that here, too, in the desert. He was city born but he was of the desert just as much, and he wanted that connection with his father’s home; the same one he had with his mother’s.  
Bob closed his eyes, breathed, and search himself. Finally, he found it.

It was like a floodgate opened. Suddenly, he understood what his father meant when he said the draw of the desert was too strong to resist, the sun and sand in his veins pulling at him and pulling at him until he had to return. The pull wasn’t that strong in Bob, battling with the place in him that belonged to Smog, Shadows, and Deceit, but it was _there_ , and he could feel the sunshine inside of his skin, now, where it had always been and he just hadn’t noticed.

“Wow.” He breathed, opening his eyes. “I…”  
“And now,” Enemy opened her eyes, all sparkling green and knowing sparkles, “You’re ready to pick your name.”

Three hours later, Bob walked out of the tent between his father and Enemy. His face was painted in The Used tradition, a mask of bright colors similar to the masks the desert sect wore when Zonerunning. The entire camp had gathered outside while he and Enemy had spoken under his dad’s watchful eye and they stood in a silent semicircle close to the tent, waiting for him. He had never met the majority of them before, but they all gave him winning smiles and warm waves. They were his family.

His dad centered him in the circle, facing the only open space the crew had left - into the vast sands of the desert. Without words, he drew his zap and placed it in Bob’s hands. Bob had never held a zap before, his mom thought he was too young to carry one like the others and, truthfully, they just weren’t practical in the small spaces of the alleys. It was warm from his dad’s body and the sun, bright blue with black stick figures along the ridging. He showed Bob how to check to see if it was loaded, by looking at the digital bar on the bottom of the handle, where the charge was recorded. The zap was on the red, only one round left for Bob’s ceremony. With his dad’s help, Bob aimed the zap into the desert. His dad stepped away, let Bob settle himself with the zap and the wide expanse he would be shooting into. Ideally, the charge would find its way into the body of some Drac before it had to the chance to hurt someone else. More likely, it would fizzle out a ways away.

Bob breathed out, and squeezed the trigger.

The recoil almost made him flinch, but he kept his face and arm steady. The jerk of the zap as a bright yellow charge left the barrel and disappeared into the sand had Bob’s fixed attention for moments that felt like hours.

“My crew!” Enemy shouted, catching his attention and drawing it away from the warm zap in his hands, “I welcome Noise Control to The Used!”

A cheer went up and Bob - Noise Control, now - looked around as they converged on him, patting his back and ruffling his hair, sounding like family that had gone years without seeing him and had missed him very much. When what felt like every single person in the desert had congratulated him and called him by his new name, Crowd Surf was finally able to clasp his shoulder and give him a proud look.  
“I told you you’d do fine, didn’t I?”  
“You were right.” Noise Control nodded, looking down at the zap. He finally handed it back to Crowd Surf, feeling the empty weight where it had been, fitting naturally into his palm.

“Let me introduce you to the others.” Crowd Surf laughed, leading him away from the circle. Mystery was close by and she waved at him spastically as they passed, making Noise Control giggle.

“Others?”  
“The other motorbabies.”  
Noise Control pulled a face at the name, but even in the city, he’d been called _motorbaby_ more than he was called _Bob_ or even _Robert_ by adults. It sucked but he'd learned to deal with it.

"I thought you said it was dangerous to have motorbabies in the desert?"

"It is," Crowd Surf smiled, but didn’t hold it for long as he continued, “But there was a terrible accident a couple of years ago, and the ports we use to take the motorbabies to Australia were shut down. Now, we have a whole generation of motorbabies, your age just about, who stayed with us. In a few years, there will be a big number of hot headed rubberburners.”  
“Will I be a rubberburner?” Noise Control asked, frowning. He didn’t much like the sound of that. Rubber was really important and it went for a pretty sum on the market. He couldn’t imagine burning it.

“Nah,” Crowd Surf shook his head, “Probably not. You’re too cool for that shit.”  
“That’s right.” Noise Control crossed his arms, “I’m going to protect people in the city and take down Better Living.”  
“Hell yeah, you are!” Crowd Surf slapped him on the back firmly, “That’s my kid. But until you’re old enough to go gallivanting off into the Better Living headquarters, why don’t I introduce you to my friends.”

Four other kids came into view when Noise Control followed Crowd Surf’s hand wave, all sitting around in a circle and throwing a ball to each other. It was a game he’d never played before; usually, he and the other kids played tag or hide-and-go-seek, or, if the day was slow on work, they would play pick-pocket and see who got the most. Throwing things around would get them lost or stolen quicker than anything and if, God forbid, they accidentally hit a Drac or a Vixen, those kids would disappear well before their time.

“Motorbabies!” Crowd Surf called, waving his hand at them. All four of them stumbled up, their ball forgotten, and rushed over, laughing and yelling his name. There had never been such an energetic group of kids as them that Noise Control had ever seen. They seemed to be so bright, so vibrant and colorful. Noise Control felt like his Shadows were slowly being overcome by the sunlight. It wasn’t a bad thing, not really, and he liked it, for the moment. He didn’t want the city to let him go, though, and he suddenly feared that, by letting the Sand and Sun awaken in him, he’d shoved the city outside of her place in his heart.

“Crowd Surf!” The new voices brought him out of his worried thoughts, and Noise Control focused on them instead.

“Noise Control,” Crowd Surf smirked, looking them all over, “These are The Used motorbabies. Bert is Enemy’s son, he’s not old enough to have a name yet, and this is Quinn.” He ruffled their hair, the two smallest of the boys, and Bert tried to bite him before his hand was yanked away. “And this is Born Quitter,”

Quitter bowed, grinning at Noise Control with big teeth, “Nice to meet you, Noise Control!”  
“Nice to meet you,” Noise Control agreed, offering his hand. The tallest of the boys, still unnamed, gave him an odd look and slapped his palm against Noise Control’s instead of shaking.  
“I’m Love Lies.” He introduced himself, “You’re the city kid.”  
“Yeah.” Noise Control nodded, dropping his arm, “I was born in the city.”  
“The distinction is,” Crown Surf bent at the knee was he was eye level with them, crossing his arms and resting them on his knees, his weight supported by his toes, “Noise Control, here, was born in the city, but he’s going to be the first of the new Used.”  
“The inter-wall movement.” Love Lies frowned, nodding seriously, “I get it. He’s your son.”  
“He is,” Crowd Surf laughed, sounding proud. Noise Control liked his laugh, the genuine happiness behind it, “And he’ll be here for a week. Do you think you could watch out for him until he’s got his sand legs?”  
“When do we get to go into the city?” Quitter asked, already reaching out to tug Noise Control into their ranks. Control stumble, the toe of his show catching on the sand, but he caught himself against Love Lies, who held him up without even flinching.

“Soon.” Crowd Surf promised, “It isn’t safe right now, especially not for motorbabies. When you turn eleven, you’ll be allowed to go.”  
“Awesome!” Quinn shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “Battery!”  
“Bat City,” Crowd Surf smiled, “Why don’t you guys all go and ask Control what it’s like there, and tell him what it’s like here. You five are going to be leading this crew one day and I want you all to know everything there is to know about both the desert and the city.”

“Okay.” Love Lies agreed, “We can do that. Come on, Noise Control. You can play catch with us.”

“Okay.” Noise Control agreed, not quite sure how everything had just happened so fast. He let himself be dragged away from his dad and settled into the circle, in between Quinn and Love Lies.

They played ‘catch’ for a while, laughing and talking about the things kids liked to talk about - themselves, their families and the crew gossip they’d overheard, the latest cool thing they’d come across in the market and bazaar. Noise Control had fun, fit in well. The worry of before, that the Sand and Sun had taken over the place that the city had once been, faded farther and farther until Noise Control finally understood what he was feeling. He wasn’t worried about it anymore. The Sand and Sun, despite not having shown itself until his naming ceremony, was a part of him, too. He wasn’t just city born, wasn’t just desert born. He was both, and the Sand and Sun, the Shadows, Smog, and Deceit, could all work and live together inside of him, like the way that The Used was trying to do with the wall.

Noise Control spent the rest of the week with them, integrating into their mini-crew and finding a place for himself. Love Lies was the leader, the oldest and the one who always knew what he was doing. Bert might have been Noise Control’s favorite, small but hotheaded and willing to fight Love Lies on any and every decision he made about what they were going to do that day, unless he’d chosen what Bert wanted to do anyway. Quitter was a jokester, liked to tease and mess around until he got punched or something, and Quinn was calm, like Noise Control, and always knew what to do to get Love Lies and Bert to back down from each other. Noise Control liked them, a lot, and he liked that they accepted him so readily. Uncle Rodry might have been right about desert born disliking city born, but not all of them seemed to adhere to that philosophy and Noise Control was grateful that he had friends. It was rare that he saw the same kid twice in the city, especially with the way Dracs liked to snatch them up every once in a while, and it was cool that he could wake up every morning and know he’d see his new friends again.

He loved his time in the desert, but at the end of the week, he missed his mom and his uncle and his cousin, and he wanted to go home for a little bit. He still didn’t like saying goodbye, and he was pleased to see that they were sad to see him go, too.

“I’ll be back.” He promised, “I want to learn everything.”  
“We’ll be here.” Love Lies nodded, opening his arms. Noise Control laughed and hugged him, hiding his face in Love Lies’ shoulder when he felt Bert, Quinn, and Born Quitter join in. They didn’t hug often, which was probably the strangest thing to Noise Control, that they wouldn’t want to make contact. Maybe it was a desert thing, because it was so hot and skin got sticky really fast here, but Noise Control didn’t think he’d like that part of life much. Still, his friends were making an effort to adopt a few of his customs and it made him happy.

“I’ll see you guys later.”  
“Good luck,” Bert offered, “Sand and Sun.”  
“In my veins.” Noise Control nodded, turning to walk to where his father and Mystery and a few of the others were waiting to leave, “Stay safe!”  
They waved at him until he was out of sight in the rocks, the shadows of the dying sun keeping them hidden as they walked. By the time they reached the wall, it was dark. His family moved like shadows and Bob was the same, silent as they slipped through the hole in the wall and into the city, again.

Taking a deep breath of thick air, Bob couldn’t help but smile. Inside, he felt something settle, counteracting the ache to go back in his chest. He ran his hands over the walls they passed and enjoyed the way the Shadows embraced him, protected him and kept him from view.

“Bob!”  
“Mom!” He laughed when she appeared, smiling at him with a big, pretty smile and scooping him up in a big hug. He clung back to her, burying his face in her chest and breathing in her familiar smell - the city and something sweet that he couldn’t place.

“I missed you,” He mumbled, laughing when she kissed his face.

“I missed you, too!” She squeezed him, and then his dad was coming in and hugging them both, squashing Bob between them and kissing his mom grossly.

“Ew!” Bob squealed, struggling to get out from between them, “That’s gross!”  
His dad started to laugh and his mom giggled, happy to have them home, and dropped Bob gently to his feet.  
“Gross?” His dad wrinkled his nose, “Are you calling your mom gross?”  
“No!” Bob wrinkled his own nose, “Kissing is gross!”  
“Well, I don’t think so.” His mom laughed, taking his dad’s hand and kissing his knuckles, “You’ll get it when you’re older, Bobby.”  
“No way!” Bob shook his head, “Is there anything to eat?”  
“Something special, just for you.” She nodded, pulling he and his dad into their little shelter, separate from the other shelters that housed their little clan.

Bob followed excitedly, his stomach growling.

-

Bob alternated months once he hit six. His mom came with he and his dad, and whichever group that happened to be alternating was with them at the time, and they would spend a month in the desert, while another group went back to the city, and then they would switch it up. His dad was in charge of the operation, so he and Bob and his mom always switched back and forth with the groups, living between the wall. Bob loved the desert, loved the city, and loved both sides of his family. His little city family and the larger desert crew, both of them his, just like the desert and the city. He killed his first Drac in the desert, though they’d been attacked a time or two in the city before that. They didn’t call him a motorbaby after that, even though he was only nine. Love Lies was almost as proud as his parents, and that night, after everyone had gone to bed, he and the other motorbabies had their own ceremony - just the five of them sitting and an extra ration Bert had snuck past his mom for Noise Control. Love Lies and he were the only ones to have taken out a Drac, because Quitter was usually in charge of keeping Bert and Quinn safe, but the other three were more in awe than jealous of them. Eventually, they’d all fall in, too, and the ceremony would repeat itself until all five of them were experienced Zone rats.

When Noise Control had finished his bread - hard and filling and of much better taste than the bread in the walls, but dry to the point that he needed to drink water with it - and Love Lies had squeezed his shoulders, they all laid in the cooling sand to watch the stars. The night sky was dark, blue or black or a darker purple than the acid rain clouds, but the stars were bright. Better Living could do as it pleased on Earth, but it could never hope of touching those balls of light, sticking to the inky sky, so far above all of them and so free. Noise Control wanted to be a star.

“We’re going to win.” Love Lies finally broke the comfortable silence between them. Bert and Quinn, now Poetic Tragedy and Shallow Believer, were almost asleep and Quitter was between them, being used as a pillow. To either side of them lay Love Lies and Noise Control - protecting them from whatever may come, like it always was now. Noise Control had been between sand and concrete for five years now, had been with them for five years. He was going to grow up with them, learn with them and take Better Living down with them. His crew.

“Yes, we are.” He said firmly, feeling the sands shift under him. When he looked across the dunes later, as they were moving to go to their tents before they were found out, he noticed the way the moonlight was reflecting off the paleness, staining everything with its reflection. Even at night, the sun’s light was never far. From the sand, to under his skin, he was safe when the sun was there.

There were three days in Bob’s life that he would consider the worst days of his life. It would figure that, on those three days, the sun would have been covered twice by acid rain clouds and, on what would actually be the worst day of his life, once by the wall of the city.

That first day, a few months after his tenth birthday and the small celebration between he and his min-crew, the acid rain clouds were heavy, ready to fall at any time. They had covered every part of skin they could, hoping that, ideally, the acid rain wouldn’t fall until they’d hit camp or, more likely, it would be a light rain that would just burn through the top layer while they set up their acid rain protection. In either event, Noise Control wasn’t very worried. They were in Zone 1, and the acid rain wasn’t usually too terrible when it fell.

“We’re going early.” He mentioned, keeping his hand steady as they walked for his mom to support herself on. She’d twisted her ankle a little the day before and she was walking on it again, but it still hurt just a bit.

“There was a messenger,” She explained quietly, so his dad wouldn’t hear. Crowd Surf stood in the front of their small group, grim faced since the night before. “She missed her check in. Surf thinks something’s wrong.”  
“How does he know?” Noise Control asked, helping her over a protruding rock.

“Sometimes, you just do.” She shrugged, “It’s instinct, Bobby. Always follow your instincts. They’ll never lie to you.”

Noise Control nodded, focusing back on his dad as they walked.

They made it to the ends of the rocks quickly, where the encampment should have been. And it was there, but in a much different state than Bob had last seen it. The new look made his stomach drop, clench too hard for him to really handle.  
“No,” He breathed out, his eyes traveling over the smoking tents. The camp was silent, somber though there were a few people still around. Mostly, they sat, with their heads in their hands and their shoulders shaking. Some were laying by the fire of a tent, warming themselves in the cool air of the approaching storm. Their acid rain protection had been set up, a large acid-proofed tent against one of the rocks, big enough for the whole crew, though usually only a few needed it - those who couldn’t get to their own in time. At the moment, it was empty.

“Enemy!” Surf started walking again, his back tense. Bob almost went after him, but remembered his mom before he took a step.

“It’s okay.” She pushed at him a little, “Go on.”  
Bob lurched forward, running. He flew past Crowd Surf and ignored his name, just kept going until he was in the camp.  
“Lies?” He tried, “Quitter, Tragedy? Believer?”  
He looked around wildly, beginning to feel the jittering of panic in his stomach. When Bob had first met them, he’d known it was odd that there were so many motorbabies in The Used. He hadn’t _really_ understood at the time, though, what it meant that their crew had _four_ motorbabies. At the time, it had been so few compared to what he’d been used to, just the five of them. It had only been in the last few months that he’d come to understand how unsafe it was to have so many in one crew. Two was pushing it in most cases, double that was near insanity in the desert.

“Guys!?” He shouted, beginning to check in tents.  
“Control.” his father caught up with him on the sixth tent, catching him, “Control, stop. You won’t like what you see in some of those.”  
“I have to find them,” Control snapped, struggling to get out of his grip, “I have to find them, let me go, I have to - I have to,” he started taking big, gulping breaths. His lungs and throat were beginning to hurt and his eyes were burning like acid rain, “I have to,”  
“Listen to me.” Crowd Surf set him down and turned him around, looked him in the eye. “Panicking won’t help your crew. You need to calm down.”  
“I-” Control stared, “I-”

“Calm. Down.” Surf squeezed his shoulders and Noise Control closed his eyes. He took another hard breath, scrubbed at his face to get rid of the tears that had formed, and nodded.

“I’m calm.” He said, “I’m calm.”  
“You sure?”  
“Promise.” Noise Control sniffed, nodding, “I just want to find them.”  
“I know, kid.” Crowd Surf let him go, “Me, too.”  
They started looking together after that, Noise Control searching for his friends and Crowd Surf looking for Imaginary Enemy. The people still alive didn’t say anything, no matter how much they tried to talk to them. Finally, they reached the end of the camp, the opposite side of where they’d started. There was a car in the distance, parked and otherwise unharmed. Crowd Surf looked at Noise Control, but he didn’t even hesitate to start trudging towards the car.  
“I need to find them.”  
Crowd Surf followed him.

Halfway to the car, the back doors opened and his mini-crew poured out of the back. Bert and Quinn were crying hysterically and Bob caught them when they threw themselves into his arms, collapsing with them as they cried into his shoulder and neck.

Jepha wasn’t far behind and he dropped in front of Bob, leaning over them to hug him tight. He was shaking so badly that Bob could hear his teeth chattering, his eyes glassy and full of tears.

“Jepha,” He knocked their heads together to get his attention, “Jepha, what happened?”  
“A-An atta-attack,” Jepha got out, looking up at Crowd Surf. Crowd Surf fell next to them and wrapped his arms around them all, letting all four of them lean into his chest,

“Better Living?” He asked gently, rubbing Jepha’s back, “Was it?”  
“No, maybe, yes,” Jepha shook his head, sniffing hard, “It was, it was some, some, I dunno, some crew, I dunno, I-”  
“It’s okay,” Bob said quietly, rubbing Bert’s back when he started sobbing, “It’s okay, Jepha.”

“Jepha, do you know where Enemy is?” Crowd Surf asked instead of asking anything else about the attacks, “Or any of the people I’m usually with?”  
“Th-They,” Jepha sniffed hard and choked on a sob. He cried for a few seconds, turning his face into Crowd Surf’s chest, “They ha-haven’t co-come back ye-yet.”

“Was there anyone in the car with you? What happened to the camp?”

“No,” He shook his head, “W-We were b-by the bazaar, and so-someone at-attacked us, and En-Enemy tol-told me to-o drive ba-back to th-the camp, but I co-couldn’t sto-stop it and it-it spu-spun and I-I didn’t wan-wanna tr-try aga-ain, I-”  
“That’s okay,” Crowd Surf looked over his shoulder and Bob suddenly felt his mom settled on his other side.

“Some-Someone fo-followed us and-nd started bu-burning the ten-tents, bu-but Ev-Evolution ki-killed them al-ll, I dunno, I dunno, I’m sorry,”  
“Jepha, baby,” Bob’s mom said gently, curling her arms around him and pulling him to her, “It’s gonna be okay, motorbaby, you did so good.”  
“I-I was so-so sca-scared, Nina, I-”  
“It’s okay,” She repeated, rocking him slowly, “It’s over now, it’s okay.”  
Bob moved so he was sitting with his legs crossed. Bert and Quinn didn’t let go of him, just cried quietly into his shoulder as his mom started to hum soothingly, calming them down.

Bob felt an absence that wasn’t his father standing to get their tracker.

“Jepha,” He said hollowly, “Jepha, where is Branden?”  
Jepha started sobbing hysterically into his mom’s shoulder and Bert and Quinn cried even harder, and Bob turned his head into his mom’s arm and joined them, his salty tears dripping down his face and into the pale sand around them.

There wasn’t much they could do but wait, so they were all prodded and pushed under the acid rain protection. There weren’t enough of them to make it cramped, so they all settled in on the ground. His mom and dad set against the rock and cuddled with the four of them, holding all of them as they shook and cried for Love Lies.

Bob had never felt something so painful before. It was like a hole in his heart had opened up and it was sucking everything away, and it just hurt so badly. He curled up in his mom’s arms and clung to Bert and Quinn, pressing his face to their greasy, sandy hair to hide his unstoppable tears.

The squeal of tires eventually broke the numb silence of the camp and he looked up just enough to see four of The Used cars pulling up to the camp. The first one to stop was shoved open and a few Used jumped out - the first of which being Imaginary Enemy.

Her eyes fell on the car Bob had found his friends in and her head snapped back to camp. From where she stood, she wouldn’t have been able to see inside the acid rain protection and Bob would have felt back for worrying her so much had he not felt so numb.

“I’ll get her,” One of the others called and she shuffled out, waving her hands to get their attention. A number of crewmembers hurried under the protection, filling up the appallingly empty spaces as they came from the cars. Most of them were bleeding, so the ones who had before been sitting listlessly in the camp finally began to move to bandage them up.

Enemy shoved through people until her eyes fell on Bert in Bob’s lap, half asleep from crying exhaustion. She visibly sagged in relief, but her fallen face didn’t lift much. Bob watched her with tired eyes, eyes too old for his face, now.

“What happened?” Crowd Surf asked gently once she’d settled down across from them. Bert opened his eye just long enough to see her, let out a long breath, and relaxed into Bob’s arms again, asleep.

She looked like she wanted to reach out and touch him so Bob tightened his arms. He didn’t think he could let them go. He didn’t think he could move his arms and let either of them go, or lift his leg enough for Jepha to move, clinging to Bob’s leg like he was.

She set back and Bob relaxed again, letting his eyes close.

“They were after them.” She finally said, “We were driving, near the bazaar. You were due in a few days so we figured we’d show up and set up camp a little early. They must have seen, somehow, that we had motorbabies.”  
“Five.” Bob’s mom broke in, her voice steel. Her voice was always like that when she had to talk about just how many motorbabies The Used had allowed to stay.

“Yes,” Enemy agreed, sounding defeated, “Yes, they saw that we had four motorbabies with us and they took their chance.”  
“They attacked you for them…” Crowd Surf rubbed his face, careful not to move his lap so Jepha could continue sleeping on it.

“They got Love Lies.” Bob broke in, speaking up. He opened his eyes again, sticky and red rimmed, stared at her, “Jepha, Bert, and Quinn got away, but he didn’t. Tell me he died. Tell me they didn’t take him.”  
“I can’t do that.” Enemy said haltingly, “I wish I could, Bob, but I can’t.”  
“You let them take him.”  
“I-”  
“You should have shot him.” Bob snapped at her, “You should have fucking killed him instead of letting him get taken!”  
“Bob!” Crowd Surf spoke up, sounding shocked and angry, “You are way out of line!”  
“No,” Enemy shook his head, “No, he isn’t. What they’ll do to him...he was better off dead.”  
Her voice broke and Bob couldn’t help but cry again. He curled up around Bert and Quinn and did his damned best to keep his sobs silent. It hurt so bad, it hurt _so bad_ , and he wished with all his might that Branden was dead. That he died fast.

“I made a mistake.” Enemy said quietly, “I was so arrogant. I thought we’d be able to protect them all, but there were just too many. There were just too many.”  
“And now Branden is…” Bob’s mom caught her breath. Bob had no breath to catch.

“Yes.”  
Bob didn’t want to hear anymore, so he fell asleep.

He woke up hours later. He vaguely remembered being moved off his mom’s lap and settled against the rock, his friends all finding their place against him, while the adults went off to go be useless again. He knew he was angry and putting all of his anger on Enemy, even on his dad, but he couldn’t help it and, honestly, he didn’t want to help it yet. He wouldn’t want to for a while.

“Bob.” Jepha said quietly, breaking Bob from his thoughts. Bob looked at him, blinking slowly once before it clicked and he was truly awake.

“Jepha,” He nodded, “Are you okay?”  
“Not really.” Jepha shook his head, “Branden’s dead.”  
“Yeah.” He nodded again, because he was never going to tell any of them that he hadn’t died, not yet, “Yeah, he is.”  
“I don’t know what to do, Bob.” Jepha said quietly, “I don’t know what to do.”  
“We’ll figure it out.”  
“Bob?” Quinn sniffed, rubbing at his eyes, “Bob, I was so scared.”  
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Bob apologized, “I don’t know what I would have done, but I wanted to be with you.”

Quinn nodded and settled onto the ground instead of on Bob, wiping at his crusty eyes until he could see clearly again. Bert was the last to wake up, and the look in his eyes almost made Bob wish had hadn’t.

“Bert,” Jepha gripped Bert’s hand and squeezed, not sure what else to say.

Bert just swallowed and laid his head back on Bob’s shoulder, taking comfort in the arm Bob slung around his back.

Enemy showed up eventually and she hugged Bert, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and that was the end of her mothering. Instead, she looked them over grimly and nodded.

“Line up.”

Bob wasn’t in the mood to fight her, but as soon as he had his energy back, there would be hell to pay. He stood up and the four of them stood in a rough line, holding hands as she stood in front of them, her arms behind her back.

“Listen to me,” She sighed, low and long, “And listen well. You are all men now, no longer motorbabies. You’re so young...I had wished to keep you safe from these realities until you were old enough, but the Sand and Sun were not on my side on this matter. Now, all we can do is try to deal with it. The loss of Love Lies…” She railed off for just a moment, “It will fade with time and you will be able to smile again. Laugh. Care. But you’ll never forget him. Better Living has taken someone dear to you, and that pain will never be forgotten. Your skin will toughen, immensely, because to lose those we love, it isn’t rare. Each of you will face many, many hardships in life, possibly even mourning each other until the last of you stands. Grieving your parents, your crew. Strangers met in the Zones. Just remember this.”

She knelt and curled her fist into the sand, turning it over to show them the handful of sand that almost immediately began to escape through her fingers.  
“Every grain you see is a soul. The soul of someone who gave their colors to protect the ones they love. Love Lies gave his colors to protect you. He died so that you could live. When you look inside of yourself and you feel that pull, that yearning for the Sand and Sun, know that it’s him. It’s every person who’s ever loved you and lost their lives, whether they knew you in life or knew you’d one day walk the earth from their descendants. They want you to come home, where they can protect you. Mourn for him, because he was beloved and will be missed, but do not pity him or hate yourself for his loss. He isn’t lost at all, he has only returned home, truly.”

She touched Bob’s shoulder, frowning, and he could see every ounce of sorrow for Love Lies’ loss. No one had ever done the mourning gesture with him before, he’d never lost anyone to whom he was close enough to have it be appropriate, but to have it done, nearly broke him. He took a hard breath and shook his head. He reached out and touched her shoulder, but his lip to hold back his wobbling tears. When she moved to do the same to Jepha, Bob wiped his eyes and swore that he wouldn’t cry for Love Lies, anymore. Love Lies wouldn’t have wanted that. He would have wanted Bob to be strong, to continue his dreams and protect their friends.

Bob would do it.

Enemy walked away, her head held tall and her back straight. That was the kind of leader Bob would be. The kind who cared so deeply for each and every one of his friends, but could be strong. Stronger than anyone.

“Let’s play Love Lies’ favorite game.” He finally said, “We’ll play in his name.”  
“Who’ll be it?” Jepha said quietly, his voice choked.

“I will.” Bert offered, “I’ll be as fast as he was. I’ll be the fastest runner in the whole desert, just like he was.”  
“Just like he was.” Quinn agreed.

They played tag, laughing and smiling and each of them pretending Love Lies was playing with them, just hidden in the sand, watching them with the same fond protection he always had. And if they all cried, if Bob had to break his promise just once, no one said anything because their smiles were only half forced. Every grain of sand that touched Bob’s face made him think of Love Lies, protecting him and being the older brother he’d been to them all. Bob wouldn’t forget him. Bob would destroy Better Living for him, and for Bert and Quinn and Jepha. They would hear the name Noise Control, Bob Bryar, and tremble.

-

Bob was a man now, had seen the devastation in the city, and lost those he loved in the desert. Bob was a man, but he wasn’t an adult, not even old enough to begin being trained under his uncle as a Trader. His father had wanted him to be a Tumbleweed, but Bob knew the city like the back of his hand and he knew he was a better trader than smuggler. He loved the desert, loved the Sand and Sun, but he was a son of the city as much as of the desert, and he preferred city life, usually. He was excited because his training had started when he turned twelve a few weeks ago, and his uncle had already taught him the routes of the Tumbleweeds so he could still come visit the desert crew when it was his turn to go out.

He was still thinking about his future job when he walked into camp, slathering on sunscreen to protect his skin while he thought.

“Control!”

He brushed the sand from the sticky patches of skin and looked up, smiling when Bert came flying into view. He caught Bert in a hug, the only one he usually got until the next time he left, only to be taken down from his left by Quinn clinging to him.  
“You guys suck,” He groaned, reaching out to scrub at their hair affectionately.

“We just missed you.” Jepha laughed, offering a hand to help him up. Bob pulled himself off the ground and wiped his ass and thighs off of sand, giving Bert and Quinn mock-annoyed looks.

“I missed you, too. What’s been happening?”  
“Well,” Jepha started, only for Bert to interrupt.

“We got a new motorbaby!”

“A new…?” Bob frowned, looking between them, “Why?”  
“His crew got wiped out, and he and his family came to ask for sanctuary. Enemy adopted them.” Jepha shrugged, “Come meet him, though. He’s really cool. Kind of a dork.”

Bob hesitated in following him. He couldn’t help but feel like this new kid would try to replace Love Lies, accidentally or not, and Bob wanted nothing to do with that. It had been almost a year since Love Lies had...since then, he’d been taken under his uncle’s wing, learning his way through the hole in the wall, and Bert and Quinn had gotten a year older, a year closer to when Bob was going to be allowed to take them and Jepha into his world for a few weeks. Jepha hadn’t ever quite returned to his usual jokester behavior, but he was getting there. They were healing, just like Imaginary Enemy had said they would. They were healing, but not enough to even mention his name out loud yet, to think about anything he’d done without getting depressed. A new kid, a fifth motorbaby like Love Lies, and it could happen all over again. Bob didn’t want to lose anymore.

“Control?” Bert frowned, pulling at his hand, “Come on.”  
“Yeah.” He finally agreed, nodding. He let Bert and Quinn pull him after Jepha, deeper into the camp. Every time he walked into camp, he noticed how normal it looked, now. No smoking tents or acid rain clouds in the sky, crew walking around and laughing with each other, like Love Lies wasn’t gone. Like nothing had happened.

He was pulled into their usual hang out spot, where the sand was a golden brown and uneven from being kicked and pushed all over the place during their games. There was a new boy there, a little older than Bob and Jepha, but hunched in on himself so much he looked only a little older than Bert and Quinn. When he spotted them coming, he perked up a little, smiling carefully.

“Hi,” he waved a little, barely a twitter of his fingers.

“I’m Noise Control.” Control offered his hand and the kid looked at him oddly. For just a second, Control saw Love Lies and nearly felt how he’d slapped their palms together, _“You’re the city kid?”_

Instead, the kid shook his hand lightly, barely wrapping his fingers around Control’s fingers and bringing their hand up and down once before he dropped his hand.

“I’m Dan - I mean,” the kid coughed, blushing, “I’m Sold Soul.”  
“Sold Soul.” Control nodded, committing it to memory, and he couldn’t help but smile just a little at the obvious nerves this kid, Sold Soul, was trying to hide. He tried to sound big and tough, but his voice broke in the middle of ‘Soul’, and it pinged something in Noise Control - around the same area that he thought of Tragedy, Quitter, and Believer.

“You’re part of The Used crew now, huh?”  
“Yeah,” Sold Soul nodded, “I, um, my crew got...yeah.”

He looked sad, so Control pressed his fingers to his shoulder and felt for him, frowned. “I’m sorry.”  
He didn’t do the crying thing anymore, crying didn’t help and Love Lies wouldn’t have wanted that for him, for any of them, and Sold Soul looked relieved that he wasn’t going to have to do the crying thing again either.

“The Used are a cool crew,” He finally voiced, turning to look at his mini-crew, “Isn’t that right?”  
“We’re the coolest.” Tragedy said firmly, “Control just won’t say it out loud.”  
“Yeah,” Quitter nodded, smirking and crossing his arms, “We’re the best around. We’re going to take Better Living down when we’re older.”  
“Really?” Sold Soul’s eyes widened, “Can I help?”  
“Duh,” Control smiled again, “You’re one of us now. Family.”  
“And family sticks together.” Poetic Tragedy crowed.  
“And protects each other!” Believer shoved Tragedy off his shoulders.

Quitter smiled, wrapping an arm around Sold Soul. It wasn’t something often done in the desert, something Control had had to integrate into their little crew so he didn’t lose his mind through touch-starvation because he was a tactile kind of guy by the desert’s standards even if he was stand offish in the city. “And once you’re crew, there’s no going back.”

Sold Soul looked close to tears, so Control instigated a game of catch and, just like that, Sold Soul was one of them. Not in the place of Love Lies, but in a place all his own.

-

Like the Bryar clan were Tumbleweeds, the Howard clan were weapons-makers, and the Allman clan were rubberburners, the Whitesides had their own clan talent that they brought into The Used. Sold Soul was already an apprentice so, when he first showed the charm to Noise Control, Control hadn’t been surprised that he could make something so delicate looking with obvious skill. He was a little miffed that it was a rabbit, because ever since Crowd Surf had told them the story of Br’er Rabbit, the rabbit who outsmarted the fox, and how the Bryar clan had adopted their name from his, they’d been teasing him relentlessly about it.

“It’s beautiful.” He admitted, almost begrudgingly. It was the same color as his eyes, a thick glass stained to match him, and shaped like a rabbit running, long blue back legs extended. There was no chain yet, so it set in Sold Soul’s hands, framed by tan leather gloves and brighter for it.

“It’s for your birthday.” Sold Soul explained, grinning at him.

Control smiled, touching the charm, “My birthday was last week, Soul.”  
“Yeah, but it wasn’t done last week.” Tragedy stuck his tongue out, “And we don’t have a durable chain made for it, yet, so you’ll have to deal with not having it until next time you come.”

“But I want it now.” Control mock-pouted, “What kind of good luck charm is it if I don’t have it on me?”  
“You’ve survived thirteen years without it,” Quitter laughed, “I think you’ll be okay until next time.”  
“You like it, though?” Sold Soul asked shyly, wrapping the charm back in the dirty cloth he’d been carrying it in. It had been a little under a year since he’d joined the crew and he’d found his place with them, under Control’s umbrella of protection. He, Believer and Quitter were old enough to go with Control to the city now, but they were all waiting until Tragedy turned eleven in a few weeks before they made the journey with him. Even though he’d been with them so long, he still got a little nervous sometimes and wanted some form of confirmation that they really did want him around. Usually, because he’d taken the ‘older brother’ role on, it came down to Noise Control to make him feel wanted.

“I love it.” He said honestly, “I can’t wait to wear it.”  
“It’ll be ready for the next time you come home.” Sold Soul promised, “And it’ll protect you.”  
“Next time, you’ll be coming back to the city with me.” Control shrugged, “And I’ll show you the other side of the world.”  
“I’m so excited!” Tragedy shouted, throwing a fist in the air, “We’re gonna fuck the city up!”  
“Yeah,” Control couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s what’ll happen.” He looked over his shoulder, to where his family was waiting to leave.

“I gotta go, guys. I’ll see you.”

They waved at him until he was out of sight, behind the rocks, where he saddled up to his mom and let her wrap her arm around him.

“You’re becoming quite the man,” She praised him, “Protecting your friends the way you do.”  
“Love Lies trusted me to take care of them.” He settled on saying, “He took care of us. Now I take care of them.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility,” She squeezed his shoulder, “Are you sure you want that?”  
“It isn’t about what I want.” He frowned at her, and she stayed quiet after that. He walked next to her and thought on her words a little, looking up at the purple sky, acid rain clouds blotching out the sun like that day two years ago.

After a few second’s deliberation, he decided that it _was_ what he wanted. He wanted to be able to protect them, to watch out for them and keep them safe. And they did the same for him. They were their own crew, joined together through Love Lies and family like him.

His last glimpse at the desert sky for a very, very long time, though he didn’t know it at that moment, was of purple clouds and no sun, acid ready to fall from the sky and onto the camp.

They were barely through the wall when everything went to Hell. It all happened so fast that, when Bob finally thought about it months and months later in Iero’s arms with Frank sleeping against his side, he couldn’t even pinpoint when the attack started. He didn’t know when it started, but it couldn’t have lasted longer than two minutes. Maybe less.

The first thing that told them something was wrong was the complete silence as they entered the city, where there was usually a small party sent to welcome them and make sure no one was hurt. “Something isn’t right.” His dad frowned, pausing. He and Bob were the last through the hole, Bob’s mom still close to him, like she could feel something wrong in the air. Bob looked around, but nothing _seemed_ off, except for the lack of The Used members. Everything looked to be in place, except for a small splatter of red against the opposing wall.

“Is that…” he started, taking a step forward, “Blood?”

There was the sound of a zap charging behind him and he dropped to the ground just as the white hot burn of a zap discharge shot over his head. It came from behind him, from /outside the hole, and suddenly everyone was shouting - and Bob could see  the white uniforms and monster masks trying to pin Bob and the others against a wall, coming out of seemingly everywhere - the bricks of the buildings, the shadows between them, the wall itself, just everywhere. People were drawing their zaps, but alleys were too compact for zaps and shooting in confined spaces was too dangerous even in a situation like this.

"Bob, move!" Bob's mom shoved him away from her, and he fell to the ground, scraping his knees. She hadn't let go of his hand, though, and he felt the moment she was shot - the jerk of her body. She fell next to him, and Bob shoved himself off the ground, turned her over so he could see her face with a shouted "Mom!"

Looking at her, he felt his blood run cold.

His mom stared up at him, her kind eyes now empty and dull, her skin paper pale. Her mouth was still opened from her scream and blood leaked and pooled around her too fast for Bob to avoid letting it seep into his clothes. He set her down, gently, and stood up, feeling his breath beginning to quicken as if from afar. What was happening? What was _happening_?

“Scatter!” Crowd Surf screamed and Bob wanted to go with him, or go with his cousin because she was heavy with her unborn motorbaby and she shouldn’t have come home with them but she wanted to be with her boyfriend for the birth in a few weeks. Instead, his uncle appeared out of nowhere and started shoving him towards the alleys, shouting “ _Scatter_ , God damn it, _Scatter_!”

Bob scattered.

He ran so hard he felt like he was going to explode, like his legs were going to implode starting from the bone marrow and ending at the tips of his leg hair.

The city ran with him, like she felt him in her bowels and seemed to move just for him, a secret passage he’d half forgotten, an alley too small for the dracs following him to get through, emptying into a crowded ghetto street far, far away from the hole in the wall. Far away from his family. He disappeared into the crowd of drugged up Ritalin Rats and other Better Living Undesirables. He didn’t stop walking for an hour. When he did stop, he finally felt safe enough to turn his eyes back onto the direction he’d run from. In the distance, smoke rose from a place too close to where The Used city sect had been camping out to not be them.  
Bob suddenly felt very, very alone.

He turned back, facing away from the smoke, and kept walking.

He walked, and walked, and walked for two days, stopping only to eat a little of the bread he’s stuffed in his pocket after breakfast before he’d left camp and to drink a little water from his last bottle before he continued. Finally, he found a small, pitch black alley with an abandoned nest of blankets - moldy and wet and unused for quite a while, and fell into it. He passed out with something grimy and hard against his cheek that he couldn’t care enough to really focus on. When he woke up, what could have been hours or days later, he wiped something off of his face with his shirt sleeve and continued walking.

He should have mourned his family. His mom, his dad, his uncle, his cousin and her kid, the others not in the Bryar clan, but just as much crew to him as his own blood family. He should have mourned their camp, with all of his meager belongings and the only things he had left of his now extinct family. He didn’t doubt for a second that he was the only one to get away because the others were too big to take the secret passages he could. They couldn’t have gotten away. The third day, he thought about trying to get out, going back to the desert, but The Used only had the location of one way in and out of the city and that hole was probably crawling with BL scum by now. If it wasn’t, it was being filled up. He wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon. He should have done, have felt, a lot of things - but he didn’t. He didn’t feel a thing. He knew that was wrong, that wasn’t how he should have felt, but it was and he figured, really, if he wanted to keep living, it was for the best. He wasn’t safe. They were probably looking for him. The Used had probably been attacked on both sides, he had no clue what had happened to his desert family. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t worry about any of it. He shut everything down before it could continue any farther than it already had.

Instead, he thought of his options. He wasn’t too young, over thirteen at least, and he looked even older. He could survive on his own, find some way out of the city and into the desert so he could find out what happened to the rest of The Used. He’d get a few jobs, save up until he could afford to get one of the other Tumbleweeds to take him out. The Bryar clan had been respected. Not enough for a free passage through the wall, though, especially not before the news that his family had been murdered got around to garner sympathies.

He’d have to wait. And when he got home, to Tragedy and Quitter and Believer and Soul, then he would be safe and he could mourn, be not okay.

Until then, he had to be calm. Efficient. Like his dad had always told him.  
He tried to be cautious in the next few days, keeping to the shadows and trading things from his pack for food and water. Eventually, he couldn’t resist and he returned to the opening in the wall he and his family had used for years and years.  
It was gone. Literally walled off with white brick, too bright and clean to fit naturally into the rest of the wall around it. Disappeared like it had never been. On the grounds where his family had been massacred, hopefully all killed and none taken, there was a sterile black - as if BL had thought to clean up the ghetto alley and not the butchered remains of Bob’s relatives.

Bob smashed his fist into the white of the new dead end until he’d marked it with so much red it would stain pink for weeks, and then he got a better grip on his hysterics and left.

He wouldn’t come back to that place again.

Time passed strangely for the next few days. Bob would blink and it would be as if whole hours had passed. It could have been that he was passing out between one blink and the next and not realizing it, but he never felt rested afterwards.

He went back to the alley of before and cleaned out the nest. He’d slept on, what appeared to be, a mutated box, some type of pillow he’d assume. He threw it out, along with parts of the clothes that had mold on them, and went out to find something a little more firm to have above his head. The acid rain in the city didn’t kill you if you got caught in it, but it burned clothes pretty bad and it hurt like a bitch against skin. The sky in the city was always purple, rarely hot but sometimes so cold you could freeze to death. Usually, it was a comfortable temperature that didn’t require too much coverings if you had a roof over your head.

Bob didn’t, but he would get one. A days' scouting and he came back with two boards of wood, rotted in one’s corner and with a split down the middle of the other. He settled the partially rotted one above him, wedging it between the two buildings that made the alley and the building that cut it off. He piled his new nest into the corner of the buildings and broke the other board at the split. One side was used to cover the opening of his new home while the other stayed inside with him, pushed partially under the nest to keep some of them off the ground and, hopefully, protect them. It was barely big enough to curl up in, but it was better than nothing, and it was safe - lost in the shadows.

He hoped the city didn’t mind that he prayed to the Sand and Sun, wasn’t offended that she’d given all of this to him and he still prayed to the desert instead, but he’d lost his city family already. It was up to the Sand and Sun to protect the only ones he had left, and, for all that she had helped him, he didn’t think the city could do much to protect them.

Eventually he ran out of tradeables, his pack grew empty of things he was willing to part with, and he had to find some sort of job.

The only thing he found open was running for a small faction, messenger boy some days and smuggler others, moving across the city quick and quiet to pass things off.

It was an odd existence, and one he wasn’t sure why he wanted to continue so desperately. He thought about Love Lies often, wondered if this empty feeling was how he’d felt when he was taken, or if he was happy that he’d been able to protect his crew. More often than that, he thought about his friends in the desert, Jepha and Bert and Dan and Quinn, wondered if they thought of him, too. If they even knew or if they’d sent a runner to the hole, only for them to find a white wall, instead. If they’d been attacked and truly everyone he’d ever loved was dead now. At the same time, he thought about the resolution he’d made only minutes before the newest worst day of his life had _become_ the worst day.

_He wanted to be able to protect them, to watch out for them and keep them safe._

Bob wanted to protect the people he still had, even if he wasn’t sure that he still had them. To do that, he needed to stay alive. And he needed to get to the desert.

“Hey,” Someone nudged him and Bob looked up from his plastic cup of soup, a ration from the faction he’d been running for for a while now, possibly months, though he wasn’t sure of the date anymore.

He didn’t say anything but he did turn his head, just enough to catch the girl’s eyes. Bob recognized her, though not by name, as one of the people he ran messages with often. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but not ugly either. Plain, like her hair and clothes. Like Bob. Plain was good. Being too much of anything got you caught in the city, and neither of them needed a chase through the alleys escaping BL at the moment, though he didn’t know her story and didn’t care to. They’d never spoken before, and he didn’t see why this situation, him sitting against the back of the building holding some sort of high class meeting between factions and eating his ration while he waited for his next message, was any different to her.

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something back, but he wasn’t going to and, for a few seconds, the two of them set in an awkward silence. She finally caught on that he wouldn’t be speaking and opened her mouth again. Nothing came out for a time and Bob had finished with his soup and had discarded the cup he’d been sipping it from before she finally started talking.

“There’s this thing,” She slid a folded paper next to him, “You want out of the city? Go there.”  
Bob frowned at her, narrowing his eyes. He’d made no secret that he was looking for a way out, but he didn’t understand why she would bother helping me. They weren’t friends, he didn’t even know her name.

“It needs supporters.” She explained, “And you need to get out. It’s beneficial.”

Bob took the paper, but didn’t open it.

“What’s your name?” He finally settled on asking, putting the paper in his pack to look at later.

“I go by Blue.” She shrugged, leaning against the wall. They stopped talking after that and, when the meeting was done and they were both sent in opposite directions to deliver their messages, Bob didn’t look back. The paper was heavy though, and he was aware of it the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until he had gone back to his ‘home’ that he settled down to read the paper. It was in code, but it was a generic desert code anyone could figure out if they had any education on desert trickery. It was familiar enough to him to send a pang of homesickness through him, reminded him that, until he could leave, he’d lost both worlds.

He slept hard that night, not waking a single time through the night. He woke up early, the runny gray of the morning breaking through the hole in his roof and hitting him in the face enough to irritate him out of sleep. He packed up, in case this was a situation where he needed to be gone within a few hours, but left the boards in place, in case it wasn’t.

When he’d put everything but the wood into his pack and read the paper over one last time to make sure he had the address down, he shoved it into his pocket, shouldered his pack, and started walking. The address was nearly on the other side of the city, closer to where he’d originally been months ago than where he was now. He passed by the alleys leading to the old hole without looking at them. Instead, he focused on the path ahead of him, blending in when he came across a BL operative and stopping himself from running to avoid unwanted attention. When he finally found the address the paper had listed, he wasn’t impressed.

It was a warehouse, not huge but not too small either. He was early and only a few people had shown up, though one of them was Blue. He nodded at her as he passed and she nodded back, but they didn’t talk to each other. Instead, he headed inside and found a good spot for himself, the table acting as a stage visible but otherwise away from the crowd likely to show.

He recognized the two men sitting on the table, knew them from swap meets with Crowd Surf, but not well enough to actually talk to them. He contemplated leaving right then while he waited, because when the going got tough, Wild Oats and War Baby were the very first to get going and he wasn’t sure he wanted to put his safety in their hands. At the same time, this was the first rumor of a way out that actually held some merit. These two wouldn’t have been Bob’s first choice if he’d had the chance to pick who would help him get out of the city, but he wouldn’t thumb his nose at them just yet, either.

Instead, he leaned against the wall and watched.

It took a while for the room to fill, but fill it did. He couldn’t say any of them were familiar, but he hadn’t been paying much attention to anything lately except how much was in his savings at any given time. For all he knew, he'd been working with some of them for weeks.

They started speaking, eventually, but Bob didn't listen much. Before the attack, he'd heard about a major score set to happen with the crew Oats and War Baby usually ran with. From what he'd heard Imaginary Enemy saying, it would be a relay that would last for months, if not years. It came together for Bob, slowly as he listened, that this little rebellion they were trying to start would be the perfect cover for their operations, sending supplies with unsuspecting, do-gooder Tumbleweeds like his own family had been, only for those supplies to end up in different hands. What they would do when the rebellion had ended, snuffed out or successful, Bob had no idea.

It didn't look like his scene, and when the rest of the crowd piled out - a slow murmur of excitement in their voices and hope Bob couldn't fault them in their hands - he almost followed them.

Instead, his eyes caught _them_ , and he stopped.

Even torn, degraded to shadows, Bob would recognize desert born like them with no trouble.

He wondered, half interested in his detached way, if he'd look that desperate one day. If he'd nearly grovel at the feet of low class dust angels like Wild Oats and War Baby just to catch a few grains of sand against his skin like Party Poison and his crew.

When he looked himself over, thought about how he'd been planning on walking out until he'd seen desert born as ravenous as coyotes like them, he realized that he already was.

-

"There's a meeting," Blue said, the next time they saw each other. Bob frowned, looking up from his cup. She always caught him when he was eating.

"So? I thought War Baby and Wild Oats went home."

"They did," Blue agreed, "But we both know they won't be much help. This is a meeting to decide what we'll do. Not many will show up, most of us would rather be led than lead, but needs must."

"And you want me there?"

"Yes. The two of us, two other people I know, and that young desert dog, Poison."

"Hey," Bob frowned, "Don't fucking call him that."

"Sorry," she said, trying to look contrite, "It's habit. Won't happen again. Will you come?"

Bob narrowed his eyes. "I'll think about it." He finally allowed.

She nodded, crossing her arms, "Same place, this time in two days."

"Don't wait up," Bob finished off his cup and crushed the paper in his hands, "See you."

"Two days," she agreed, like he hasn't just told her he probably wouldn't show.

Two days later found Bob staring at the blackness of his wooden roof, his hand partially outstretched so he could touch the warped, soggy surface.

"What's the worst that could happen?" He heard someone say out loud. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was his own voice, echoing around his small cave in a pale imitation of conversation.

He needed to get out of the box, at the very least.

He found himself, without remembering much, walking the streets slowly. He knew where he was going, for all that he was avoiding thinking about it. Instead, he thought about how nice it would be if he found enough for a real meal tonight. If he was really meant to be where he thought he was, then his feet and his lack of attention would lead him there.

He ended up exactly where he knew he would, after a while of wandering around alleys he’d accidentally memorized days earlier.

Blue and Party Poison were already there, a silence between them that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. Bob settled into one of the chairs around the table, closer to Poison than Blue so she didn't get any ideas about them being friends, and so she remembered her promise not to _slip up_ again.

She gave him a nod he just barely returned, and Poison offered a hand that Bob took with all the grace of a desert born he could muster. For all that he hadn't been in the desert, Poison seemed to understand what Bob meant.

Another women came in, all dirty blond hair and pretty features with a hard, aggressive look in her eye, and she settled at Blue's side without a word.

It stayed quiet for a little longer and Bob was wondering if he should say something when four new people came in at once, startling the lot of them. A boy, looking barely the height of Bob's waist, plopped down next to Bob with the confidence of a man three times his age and at least five times his size and sent him a smile just oozing with 'don't tell on me, please' - all shy and cute as fuck under all that false bravado. He was starved skinny, a fucking slip of a thing that had no business sitting so close to him, let alone at a meeting like this.

Bob smiled back, just a little, because he couldn’t help it and he settled an arm around the back of the kid’s chair comfortably, playing along. When Blue shot him a look, Bob nodded casually and it was left at that.

"Glad you could all show up." Blue finally said when they had settled. Another women had set at her other side, all red hair muddied by the city and firm lips. The other two hadn't set, just shuffled around a little before the redhead had twitched her fingers and they had disappeared. If Bob had to guess, Blue had brought them along in case there had been people she didn't think would settle onto her side in arguments. With only Poison and Bob, since the kid wouldn't count, she only needed her two friends with her for the time being. If Wild Oats and War Baby hadn't explicitly told the crowds before they'd left that they had wanted Poison and his crew at this table, he probably wouldn't have been allowed in.

"This is going to be quite the democracy," Poison responded, crossing his arms, "Don't think we haven't caught on. Just remember I've got two other votes on my side as well, Blue."

"I don't know what you’re talking about," Blue shrugged, but Bob saw the curse that almost escaped. Even with her two other people, it wouldn't turn the tide in her favor if Poison brought in Jet Star and Kobra Kid, and Bob demanded his own little companion's vote counted.

"To business," Bob intercepted, "This isn't the time for cock measuring. If it comes down to it, I'll be tiebreaker, got it? That's what I'm here for, right, Blue?"

"Right," she admitted, "We all want to get out of here. I figured, in case we make decisions that might not be safe for the city rats neither of our crews are particularly a part of, you'd be able to pull us in."

"Because I'm both." Bob nodded, "I get it."

His new companion shifted and looked up at him in amazement. It made Bob feel a little warm, for the first time since he'd been walled in, and it reminded him of how the others would look at him when he'd done or said something they found impressive.

"Now that we've established that," Blue nodded, "Let's us talk business, boys."

She laid out a map, the basic outline of Bat City, and the meeting commenced.

By the end, Bob had settled no fewer than three arguments between Blue and Poison, but they had hashed out a basic plan to get into contact with the desert crews beyond the wall and set up search parties to find a way out.

It wouldn't be easy, if the first meeting was anything to go by, but it could be done and Bob liked that.

"That's all we can do for the day, I think." Blue finally stood, pressing her hands to the table, "For the next two weeks, I and my crew will focus on collecting revenue and sending out requests for aid. You and yours will be spending your efforts searching for ways out of the city. Agreed?"

"Agreed." Poison nodded, not looking nearly as surly as he had been only a few minutes earlier.

"So we meet back up at the new location, fourteen days from now, same time, to update." Bob crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair, "Good?"

"Good." They both nodded and Bob shrugged.

"Class dismissed, I guess."

Blue gave him a look, but stepped away from the table. Her two followers kept pace behind her and the three of them disappeared through the door.

Poison stood as well and nodded at Bob, eyes darting to Bob's little companion for the flash of a second. "Thanks for the support. I know you aren't doing it for me, but, still."

"She's aggressive," Bob nodded, "You're...not so much. Together, we'll cobble something together."

"Yeah," Poison nodded, "See you, then. Don't die."

"No promises."

Poison smirked a little and, with one last flick of his fingers, left, as well. When Bob was the last in the warehouse, he looked down at the warm lump in his side and shook his head.

The kid had fallen asleep.

"Shit, motorbaby," Bob laughed a little. It felt weird in his throat, like he was ripping stitches off a wound. He was a motorbaby himself but, looking at this strange fucking kid sleeping against him, he felt so much older. He wondered if that was a common thing, if losing everything made you older than when you had it all. He didn’t want to think about that.

Instead, he nudged the kid a little to wake him up.

The kid flinched a little under Bob’s careful touch, his eyes flickering open and then closing again a few times before he was finally able to sit up.

“Um,” He started, sounding a little lost, “What?”

“You fell asleep during the meeting.”

“Oh,” the kid rubbed at his eyes, “That makes sense,”

“Does it?” Bob raised an eyebrow, “That you’d fall asleep in the middle of something as important as a meeting to decide exactly what we’re doing in a dangerous rebellion?”

“I didn’t sleep well,” The kid frowned, “Besides, you can just tell me what I missed.”

“Who even are you?” Bob frowned, “Do I know you?”  
“No,” the kid shook his head, “But my name’s Frank. Who are you?”  
“Why should I tell you?”  
“Because I told you,” _Frank_ frowned, “It’s only fair.”

Bob raised an eyebrow, “Since when has life been fair, kid?”

“My name isn’t _kid_ ,” Frank scoffed, “It’s Frank. Now you tell me yours.”

Bob laughed, soft and quiet, couldn’t help but be amused at the fucking audacity of this strange little shred of skin and bone. “It’s Bob.”

“Bob,” Frank nodded, crossing his arms, “Well, Bob, tell me what I missed.”  
“Nothing important,” Bob gave in, “Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you go home, Frank. There’s nothing else to see, here.”

“What about next time? Where’s the next meeting?”

“I said,” Bob shook his head, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got this, kid. You don’t need to stress out over it.”  
“Hey!” Frank frowned, glaring, “Don’t treat me like a kid! I’ve got every right to be here, damn it! Who said Blue and Greasy got to decide who ran the rebellion!?”  
“The people who started it,” Bob shook his head, crossing his arms and looking Frank over, “They decided who they left in charge. You, sadly, were not gifted the title of ‘leader.’ And who the hell is _Greasy_?”

“So?” Frank nearly pouted, and Bob couldn’t help but think back to Tragedy when he was younger - all pouting eyes and pleading noises until Bob gave in. “I can do anything you can do, got it? I’ll beat the shit out of you, I will.”

He shook his fist at Bob and Bob, before he could even think about it, promptly lost his shit.

“Hey! Stop laughing at me!”

Bob waved his hand at him helplessly, crouching down so he wasn’t towering over the kid and covering his face with one hand, batting at Frank with the other when he started swinging his fucking tiny fists at him. Bob wasn’t sure just how long he laughed, but eventually he had to hold Frank away so he could catch his breathe. His face was hot under his fingers, probably all fucking red, and he was having trouble breathing. Bob rubbed at his eyes and felt wetness, tears, and it only made him laugh harder.  It took him a little longer to realize that Frank had stopped throwing his useless punches and had crossed his arms to pout again. He was trying to look intimidating, maybe scary, but he was too much for Bob to handle without a fucking smile on his face.

“Shit, kid,” he breathed out, just trying to get himself under control, “What the fuck, you’re half my size.”

“So?” Frank spit out, looking affronted under Bob’s hand, “I’m a dangerous motherfucker, got it?”  
Bob bit his lip, nodding. He breathed in deep, felt the air in his lungs expand as far as it could go, before he let it out and dropped his hand from Frank’s head.

“You look hungry.” He finally got control of his voice, looking Frank over again with new eyes, “Are you from around here?”  
“No,” Frank scuffed his foot on the ground, “I’m from the other side of the city.”  
“Come with me,” Bob shook his head, “I’ll find some food for us and I’ll tell you when the next meeting is. Get that smug look off your face.”

Bob waited for Frank to scurry through the door before he let it swing fully closed, the loud ‘bang’ of metal against metal making Frank jump at Bob’s side.

They started walking, Bob leading the way through the streets as they darkened with the loss of daylight. Frank stayed by his side, not moving too far from him in the unfamiliar territory while Bob searched his usual haunts in the hopes of finding some sort of food. The kid looked barely thick enough to not blow away in the wind and it made Bob’s own stomach hurt to imagine how hungry he must be on a daily basis. He was used to that feeling, when he looked at the other kids in the streets, but there was something about this kid in particular that reminded him of his crew in the desert. Maybe it was the spunk, the confrontational attitude, the sheer balls it took to sneak into the meeting and sit next to someone like Bob and then _fall asleep on them_. Maybe it was just that his hair color reminded Bob of home - all shitty bleach and chopped up strands of hair. Whatever it was, it made Bob lose all hesitation to break into his small stash of savings to buy some food.

“Is this the trading place?” Frank asked, looking around Bob’s arm to see. Bob nodded, looping an arm over Frank’s shoulders as they passed a few shady alleys Bob had learned to avoid.

“Yeah. If you can’t see into the alley, don’t go into it. BL knows about this place, but we haven’t been raided yet. Kids go missing pretty often, though, so don’t stray if you’re with someone and don’t take risks if you aren’t.”  
“Oh,” Frank hesitated, then gripped the end of Bob’s shirt in his fist, “Okay.”

Bob spied over the stalls for a few moments before he settled on the Smiths’ table, since they had a habit of lowering prices for kids they thought were too small.

“Pick something,” He grunted, once he’d led Frank over.

“That,” Frank pointed without hesitation and Bob followed his finger to the bun. It was dark, desert bread, and Bob nodded.

“Two of those.” He ordered, pulling out a small wad of carbons. The Smith women gave Frank a sweet smile and bagged up the two ordered buns. She handed them over to Frank and Bob kept one eye on him while he paid her - discounted, like he had thought it would be.

He slid the rest into his shoe, the only safe place he had on him, and led Frank away from the stalls.

“Eat up,” Bob nodded towards the bag, “As much as you want.”  
“Thanks!” Frank grinned, the anger from before completely gone at the promise of food. He wasted no time in digging in, munching on one of the buns while Bob savored his own. He shouldn’t have splurged like that, but - truthfully - he couldn’t consider it a waste with the look of happiness on Frank’s face.

Bob didn’t know what it was that made him care about some kid he’d only known for about two hours, but he figured it was that brother instinct he’d picked up from so long with the mini-crew in the desert. After Love Lies had been taken, Bob had seen that there had been a role in the group that had needed filling, and he’d filled it. Frank was so small, and he looked half ready to fall over dead at any moment, big watery eyes and a red nose, and Bob couldn’t help it. It wasn’t the best habit to pick up, offering to buy food for any old kid off the street, especially for someone like Bob, who needed to save every cent he could, but Bob really couldn’t help it.

“Thanks for the food!” Frank said loudly, slapping Bob’s arm good-naturedly. He still had half the bun left, and he slipped it into the bag and tied it around his wrist.

“Full?” Bob couldn’t help but ask, still picking at the majority of his own bun. He’d had enough for the day, with most of it still left for the next day.

“Yeah,” Frank nodded, “The rest is for my mom.”  
“Your mom?” Bob looked at him again, “Why wasn’t she at the meeting?”  
“She doesn’t care much about that stuff,” Frank shook his head, “She thinks it’s a bust, because those two coyotes were quacks.”

“They were,” Bob couldn’t help but agree. “But you don’t?”  
“Nah,” Frank shook his head, “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen if I stuck with it? We’d just be here, in the same place we are now. Only difference is, at least I’m actually doing something to get out.”

“How old are you again?” Bob couldn’t help but tease, smiling a little. He could only laugh at Frank’s outraged, “I’m eleven, motherfucker!”

They stopped, eventually, at a crossways, four different directions to go and Frank obviously heading towards a way Bob wasn’t.

“The next meeting,” Bob hesitated, “Meet me here, an hour before noon in fourteen days, okay? I’ll take you to the place.”  
“Really?” Frank gave him the side-eye, “How can I trust you?”  
“I just spend a lot of money getting you food, and I let you pretend to be my partner in the meeting,” Bob rolled his eyes, “We’re practically soulmates here, Frankie.”  
Frank blinked at him a few times, and then grinned. It was like the fucking sun, coming out of nowhere. For just a few seconds, Bob felt like he was back in the desert - the sun rushing through his veins.

“Oh.” He coughed, rubbing his hair, “Um,”

“Meet me here, tomorrow!” Frank ordered, “I’ll pay you back for the bread. Got it?”  
“Uh,” Bob started, but Frank slammed his fist into Bob’s hand in a one-sided fist bump, and raced off.

“Tomorrow!” Frank shouted over his shoulder, weaving through the shadows of his alley like he belonged to them. Bob suddenly realized that he _did_. Frank was city born, through and through, but he still wanted to go to the desert. “Noon! Don’t forget, Bob!”

Bob hesitated, rubbing at his arm thoughtfully.

The next day, he didn’t forget.

-

“Iero,”

“Bob,” Iero smiled, just enough that Bob knew she really was happy to see him, “How’s it?”  
“Good,” He nodded, gripping Frank’s ankles tighter when he started moving around a little too much on Bob’s shoulders, “The meeting went well.”  
“You’re still going to those things?” Iero scoffed, “The two of you…”  
“It’ll work, mom!” Frank stopped moving so much and Bob took the opportunity to swing him off and plop him onto the ground before he could argue. “Hey!”  
“You’re getting heavy,” Bob ruffled his hair, “Anyway, we’re going to start collecting soon. Blue’s sent out all the letters that she could,”  
“And Greasy and his crew are searching for a way out. A hundred people joined us, today.”  
“Idiots,” She scoffed, but she tapped Frank’s forehead when she passed him by, “The two of you be careful. I’ll be back in a few hours. Help yourself to anything you can find, Bob.”  
“Thank you,” Bob nodded, shoving his hands in his jeans. She patted his shoulder as she passed and Bob wondered if the warmth under her fingers, pressed to his skin, was supposed to make him feel as nice as it did. He wouldn’t describe it as ‘happy’, but it wasn’t difficult for him to find a small bit of pleasure in the touches, the reminders that there were other people in the world - not just the ones he spoke to for jobs or during the meetings. Iero and Frank, were both proof of that and Bob nearly reveled in it until he caught himself.

“Hey,” Frank nudged him, breaking Bob from his thoughts, “Have you eaten?”  
“Frankie, I’ve been with you, all day.” Bob raised an eyebrow, “Did you see me eating?”  
“Shut up,” Frank grinned, unfolding a piece of cloth to reveal a small potato. “Look what I found.”  
“Found?” Bob settled down against the wall of the Iero hideout and accepted the broken half of potato Frank offered to him, “Where?”  
“Urie’s stall,” Frank bit into the vegetable without another word and Bob just set back and admired it, just how honest Frank was - for all that he worshiped Deceit.

“Anyway,” Frank interrupted his thoughts again, forcing Bob back into the moment with him, “Tell me about the Sand and Sun, Bob.”  
“Sand and Sun?” Bob peeled a bit of skin off and ate the bared flesh, ignoring the bland taste, “What about them?”  
“It’s just,” Frank stopped eating, picking at his potato half, “You know, we’re gonna be living there, eventually, but I don’t really know anything about it. I pray to the city, she’s my higher being, or whatever, but you don’t.”  
“Not often,” Bob agreed. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, though, but he’d begun to again. The city hadn’t held anything he’d wanted to protect anymore, after the loss of his family. Now, the city held Frank and Bob was almost a little scared at how much the little shit had grown on him in just three weeks. “You want me to tell you about it?”  
“Yeah,” Frank said, enthusiastically, “That way, I’ll know what I’m getting into.”  
Bob snorted, rolled his eyes, but he let Frank press into his side to avoid the chill in the air, and opened his mouth.

“For one,” he started, “The Sand and Sun runs in my veins. It runs in every desert born’s veins,

even those raised in the city, like me. It’s a constant ache, a need to be in the desert - surrounded by the sands and the sun on your skin. I have both, being both city and desert born. The city is my home, but I miss the sands like burning, get it?”  
“I think so. So the Sand and Sun look out for you like Smog, Deceit, and Shadows look out for me.”  
“Kind of,” Bob nodded, “At least, that’s how I feel it. For all I know, it might be completely different to some, or even most, other people. I’ve never really talked about it, not since I was five and had my naming ceremony.”  
“Naming ceremony!?” Frank tapped his arm a few times, like he was afraid he’d lose Bob’s attention despite being a warm blob right against his side, “What’s that!?”

“A naming ceremony?” Bob shrugged, “It’s just a rite of passage for desert born. When you turn five, you’re allowed to choose your desert name and your crew leader, or a parent, helps you take your first shot into the sands. The mythos is that your discharge will travel through the desert until it reaches a Drac and takes it out to save your crew's’ lives.”  
“Wow,” Frank breathed, “Will I get one, even though I’m older?”  
“Maybe,” Bob thought about it, “I would suppose so. It would depend on the crew you joined, probably.”  
“What crew are you joining?”  
“I already have a crew,” Bob squeezed Frank’s shoulders in his arm, pulling him closer to Bob’s side, like Bob could protect him. Protect him like he hadn’t been able to protect the others. “The Used crew. Best in the desert.”

“Can mom and I be in your crew, then?”

“What, you want to hang out with me in the desert, too?” Bob finished off his potato and licked his fingers clean of the juice.

“Duh,” Frank rolled his eyes hard enough that Bob could hear it, “You’re my best friend now, Bob.”  
“Best friend?” Bob frowned, thinking back on their time together. He had been with Frank nearly every day since they’d met. He’d met Frank’s family - small that it was - and if he’d still had his, he would have introduced Frank long ago, as well. He liked being with Frank. It made him feel, for want of a better word, happy. “Yeah, I guess,” He agreed.

“So, can we?” Frank stuffed the last of his half into his mouth and chewed obnoxiously, the muffed ‘please’ that followed coming out distorted with a spray of potato juice as he remembered the few manners he’d been taught.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed, watching as Frank started sorting through some new collection he’d begun or another, “Sure, you can. If they’re still alive”

“Cool!” Frank fist pumped, not even bothering to think about what would happen if Bob’s crew _weren’t_ alive, “I’m gonna be part of a real desert crew!”  
“Yeah,” Bob nodded, adopting the positivity, “Yeah, you are. And I’ll protect you.”

“And we’ll protect you,” Frank promised, “Welcome to the family, Bob.”  
“Yeah,” Bob cleared his throat a little and wondered what the burning feeling in the back of his eyes was.

-

Maybe because Bob had already had every home he’d ever known taken from him in one fowl swoop. Maybe because he’d always thought it was like the old saying; “Lightning never strikes the same place twice.”

Whatever ‘maybe’ he went with, Bob never really thought about what would happen if he was found by Better Living once again. His little hole in the wall was unassuming, out of the way and pitch black when the purple of the sky wasn’t illuminating it in watery gray. No one else lived in the alley, and he only took up maybe six feet in the very back, where he’d boxed himself into a small space filled with nothing but flat pillows and wood.

He could see, a few weeks later, how this had been a deadly oversight. But hindsight was twenty-twenty, and there was nothing he could do about it when he turned the corner into the darkness of his familiar alley after an intense battle of wills over the meeting table only to see white suits and gray masks, but run.

He heard them give chase, but Bob had gotten a lot better at rushing through the landscape since that night and he lost them fast enough. He still didn’t stop running. On one hand, he knew that it was just an alley. Just a box he’d shoved together with intentions of leaving it the first chance he got. It was just a hidey hole he’d spent too long at anyway - the first rule he’d learned on his own: Never stay in one place for too long.

On the other hand, it had been his home, the closest thing to it that he had left, anyway, and they had - once again - destroyed it. He wanted to scream, and cry, and run forever and ever. He slowed to a jog and shoved his hands over his face, jogging in place and breathing hard into his palms, holding back noises that definitely weren’t sobs and trying not to scream out in frustration.

He wanted to curl up in the dirt and cry. Instead, he filled his lungs again and headed towards Frank and Iero. If nothing else, they’d have a lead on some place he could stay for the night. He was lucky he kept his stash on his person or he’d have lost it, too.

He found them both in their latest holdup, an alley of their own with ARP cloth tied above them to keep the acid rain out and scarfing down a shared _something_ with blackened skin.

“Hey, Bob!” Frank said enthusiastically. His smile fell when he caught sight of Bob’s face and that was worse than seeing the Dracs picking through his makeshift shelter, so Bob forced a tiny smile.

“Hey, Frankie.”  
“What’s wrong?” Frank demanded, looking murderous, “Did someone do something? I’ll kill them.”

“Trust me, kid,” Bob shook his head, sitting down gingerly when Iero offered him a seat on their nest, “You don’t wanna fight a Drac in an alley. Just ain’t worth the fight.”  
“What happened?” Iero frowned, touching his shoulder lightly. She was always cautious with him, always light and careful. He could see his own pain in her face, older and more weathered from years and constant exposure to Frank’s fucking smile, but still there.

“They found my hideout,” Bob voiced, wondering how he managed to keep his voice so steady after his near breakdown a few streets away, “It wasn’t much, but…”  
“I’ll kill them,” Frank grunted, sounding thunderous. He wasn’t careful at all when he fell into Bob’s arms and Bob couldn’t help but reach back for him, crush him into the hug Frank offered and hide his face in Frank’s bony, little shoulder for a few seconds. He got a hold of himself, loosened his hold, but Frank didn’t bother pulling away. Instead, he collapsed into Bob’s chest and knocked him over so that they were both laying on the nest, nestled together in the chill of the night.

Iero ran her fingers through Frank’s hair and let them trail to Bob’s. When he didn’t flinch away, she turned it into a purposeful caress, a soothing touch against his head. It had been so long since other people had made purposeful contact with him like this - not since that night - and it made him feel choked. He looked at Frank and tried to clear his throat around the knot that had formed. Frank just smiled at him, all crooked teeth and scrunched nose.

“Don’t worry, Bob. Sleep for now. Tomorrow, we’ll get your box back. And if not, you can just live with mom and me.”  
“Duh,” Iero nudged Frank, “Bob knew that.”  
“Hm,” Bob grunted softly, feeling his eye growing heavy. Maybe he had known that. ‘Maybe’ was a term he had adopted into his vocabulary a lot more than he once had.

He fell asleep with Frank octopusing around Bob’s body, warming him marrow deep, and Iero carding her nails along his scalp gently.

When he woke up, he was given a part of their breakfast, an already small bit of bread split into three without complaint from either of them. He thought about returning to his alley, seeing what he could salvage. Instead, he set with Iero while Frank ran off to fuck around with some of the new Parader kids (and God damn that Party Poison for naming their stupid-ass rebellion something as idiotic as The Black Parade Rebellion).

“You did know, didn’t you?” She asked him once Frank had galloped out of sight.

“Maybe,” Bob shrugged, “Maybe I did. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted…I dunno. Frank makes me feel better.”  
“He has that effect on people.” Iero nodded, smiling a little, “He’s got no clue, the fucking sunshine he makes with those blinders.”

“If he did, I don’t think it’d make a difference. Kid can’t keep a smile off his face to save a life,” Bob quirked his own lips, ironic and maybe a little sad. He wondered if he’d been like that, once.

“You’re a little harder to get goin’,” Iero admitted, shaking her head, “But don’t put your own rays down, sunshine.”  
“Yeah, right,” He shook his head, “Dry as the desert, that’s me.”  
“Desert’s got life in it, kid.” She waved her hand at him, “Don’t give up just yet, motorbaby. You’ve got a little bit longer to go before you get to be so cynical.”  
“Not a motorbaby,” Bob couldn’t help but protest, “I’ve earned my stripes.”  
“Mhm,” She hummed, patting his hand, “Stripes or not, you’re always welcome here.”

“Thanks,” Bob clicked his lips and forcibly unclenched his fists, “I appreciate it.”  
“You’re an idiot.” She teased. She didn’t sound much different from usual, which was pretty severe even when she wasn’t angry, but Bob had been able to tell when she was joking around and when she wasn’t because of his many brushes with Born Quitter’s father. It was actually a comfort, to have a familiar personality around like her.

Frank came back soon after with some harebrained scheme to get some carbon and Bob, being just as much of an idiot as Iero thought, went along with it because it didn’t sound _too_ dangerous.

When they came back later that night, dirty with sweat and covered in dried mud, she was too busy laughing to even get angry at the small cuts littering their ankles from walking through thorny bushes - the only plant life BL grew.

-

“Hey, Bob,” Frank leaned over Bob’s head, tilting his body upside down so he could look at Bob’s face. Bob just tightened his grip on Frank’s thighs and grunted to let Frank know he had his attention.

“What do you think it’s like to die?”

Bob didn’t stop walking, but he had to consciously stop his hands from gripping Frank too hard.

“Why?”

“Jacob died yesterday,” Frank leaned back into a more safe position, clinging to Bob’s shoulders and resting his head on Bob’s, “And Marcus said that it must have been really scary for him, before he died.”

“Frankie,” Bob said gently, not sure what to respond with. “You know, the city and the desert both have different views on death.”  
“When a city born dies, their soul join the shadows of the alleys and protect the other city born. Like my dad and the rest of my family.”

“And like mine,” Bob agreed, “They’re part of the city now, looking out for us.”

“What about in the desert?” Frank hesitated, looking at his fingers, “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”  
Bob huffed out a small smile, ruffled Frank’s hair roughly, “Don’t be an idiot. It’s a little different in the desert. A desert born can never truly die, Frank, not really. Instead, when they give their colors, the Sun and Sand turn their shadows to sand and they join the rest of the desert. My - my dad, he always said that the pull I feel, the pull we all feel, it’s the desert calling for us. The people who died for us, pulling us back home, wanting to keep us safe.”  
“So, Jacob is part of the shadows now, right?”

“Right,” Bob nodded, “And now he watches over the rest of you, keeping you safe. Got it?”

“Is that what you believe?” Frank kicked his feet against the wall, “Really?”  
“Yeah,” He nodded, looking at his own feet, “Yeah, I do. I like to think my family is watching over me, right now. My dad, my mom...Love Lies, though he’d be sand, by now.” Hopefully.

“I want to believe, too.” Frank gripped the broken stone under him, and Bob was almost worried he’d cut himself on it, “That Jacob isn’t gone.”  
“Not gone,” Bob shook his head, “Just...different, now.”

“Different, now.” Frank agreed. They stayed sitting for a while after, playing a word game Frank had learned from one friend or another. Bob was surprisingly good at it, but Frank had him beat every time due to the sheer amount of vocabulary Iero liked to shove into Frank’s head on her off hours. It was fun, in a relaxing way, and when Bob looked back on that moment - years later, but before he’d lost the ability to look back - it was with a haze of honey-sweet affection.

“Hey!” Frank finally hopped off the wall and shoved at Bob’s thigh, “Let’s go to the rent-a-ments.”

“With what cash?” Bob raised an eyebrow, “You got some on you?”  
“I will,” Frank boasted, “Give me an hour.”  
“No way,” Bob shook his head, “The last time you said that, we came home covered in slime.”  
“Who knew sewers were slimy?” Frank shrugged, “Don’t be a baby, Bob! Let’s do it.”  
“You’re the worst,” Bob sighed, “This is peer pressure.”  
“Peer pressure, shmeer smessure,” Frank waved a hand, “I’m the best leader you’ve ever had.”  
“Nailed it,” Bob shook his head in amusement, “You’re the best, around.”

“Exactly. Now come on, Bobert, we’ve got tradeables to find and instruments to rent.”

“Yes, sir,” Bob saluted, letting himself fall off the wall and to his feet.

“Don’t be a dick,” Frank punched his arm, laughing his obnoxious, infectious laugh. He started walking and Bob followed him, watching over their shoulders so Frank didn’t have to. They ended up picking up enough to get the half busted drum kit for half an hour and, while Bob beat the shit out of it like his dad had showed him how to when he was younger, Frank borrowed someone’s beaten up guitar and twanged out a few sour notes to go along with them. Half way through, Frank let his voice join in and - for all that it probably wasn’t the best vocal performance he’d ever heard - it was Bob’s favorite, all the same.

-

Frank liked to do dangerous, stupid shit to make Bob smile. Before Frank and Iero, Bob hadn’t had much to smile about. And maybe it wasn’t much, but the two of them were more than Bob had thought he’d ever have again. He wanted to protect them, like he hadn’t been able to protect his family, and he wanted to stay with them - in the city, and in the desert. Truthfully, if he could find a way out of the city, he’d get the three of them gone so fast they’d leave dust in their tracks, fuck the Black fucking Parade and Blue and even Party Poison. Poison had what Bob could only describe as an obsession with getting everyone out safely, but Bob had already learned the hard way that it just wasn’t feasible when dealing with Better Living. People were going to die. Bob just couldn’t handle the soul-suckingly sad looks Poison got on his face when Bob pointed it out, so he let him go on with the delusions.

Instead of worrying about it, Bob focused on writing letters. Even though he couldn’t get the three of them through the wall yet, he had the luxury of express shipping his own mail on the first shipment of contact requests due out and he took full advantage of it. It was a little expensive to send out five different letters, but he needed to make contact with at least one of them. Five different letters, all addressed to The Used crew. He could only pray that one of them made it. That The Used crew was still alive and kicking.

Between the first batch of letters and when replies began to trickle in, almost two months passed. Bob spent that time doing his best to find a way out and helping Frank scrounge around for carbons to use for rent-a-ments and, if they were lucky, a new song or another. But the letters did come, eventually, and Bob was relieved to see that the trust system thing going on in the dessert was still going good and strong.

“Hey,” Poison caught him when he and Frank were leaving the latest meeting, not reaching out to grab his sleeve like Bob had grown used to. People in the city were so used to touch, had what seemed like a whole language that could only be understood through finger tips and shoulder nudges. Frank spoke it fluently, and so did Iero, but Bob - probably because most of his family was desert-immigrated into the city - did not do so well. It was a little refreshing, to see that Poison was the same way. When Poison touched him, it usually felt like he was trying to mask that he couldn’t speak it, hide that he wasn’t fluent, wasn’t quite able to grasp it like a city-born could. “You got mail.”  
“Mail?” Bob frowned, offering his hand. Poison slid a thin envelope into his hand, eyes seeming to glitch over Frank at his side for just a moment as he did so. Frank wilted into Bob’s side, and Bob tried not to smirk. Frank’s crush on Party Fucking Poison would probably be Bob’s favorite thing to tease him about, forever. Since Bob couldn’t really get a word in edgewise at the meetings unless he really needed too, he’d taken to watching Frankie watch Party Poison and the kid was fucking enamored, just so taken with the greasy motherfucker and his weird ass friends that Bob couldn’t help but think it was cute. The way Party Poison had occasionally glanced at Frankie when he wasn’t looking with this sort of warmth in his eyes had made Bob think there was something in their history, and Frank eventually told him that he’d sort of been hanging around them for a while before he’d met Bob. Apparently, he’d actually followed them into the Black Parade. Suffice to say, Bob and Iero took up teasing almost immediately, and, even now, Frank never got away with a glance at Poison before Bob was nudging him and smirking until Frankie went bright red.

“Yeah. Be careful out there.”  
“Yeah,” Bob nodded, flipping the envelope over to see if he could find a name, “You, too. Make sure your crew stays in the shadows, man, I saw a Drac following your string bean yesterday.”

“Thanks,” Poison nodded, bumbling knuckles with Bob when Bob offered, and then disappeared. Blue shot him a curious glance on her way out, but he ignored it and ripped into the letter instead.

“What’s it say?” Frank asked, leaning up on his toes to try to read. Bob waved him off a little, taking the chance to skim.

“It’s from my crew,” he finally told him, trying not to sound too excited. He’d half expected that he wouldn’t get anything back, that he was not only the last of the Bryar clan, but of The Used crew as well, and he hadn’t quite known what he’d do with himself, Frank, and Iero, if he hadn’t been able to rely on his crew. He was also almost dizzy with relief. More than even knowing that The Used was okay, was knowing that Bert, Quinn, Jepha, and Dan were alive.

“Come on, Frankie, let’s get back to the hideout. I’ll read it to you.”  
And usually, when Frank was excited, he had to drag Bob after him, Bob barely able to keep his feet under him. This time, the opposite was nearly true.

“Okay,” Frank gasped, sounding a little wheezy, “Read it, now.”

Bob laughed, settling into their nest and letting Frank clamor over him until he was comfortable. When Frank had finally settled into Bob’s shoulder, Bob reopened the letter and read.

“It says that the attack on my family,” he cleared his throat, “It was on both sides. They heard that we’d all been wiped out, but only a few of them had been hurt. Our leader, Imaginary Enemy, she was downed but she recovered and she’s back in action now…And the four of them have started reconning for the crew, so they’re spending a lot of time traveling through the Zones.”  
“What did they say about us?” Frank asked, a little nervously. Bob couldn’t help but feel a burning fondness for him. Frank, for being such a confident, know-it-all kid, was always just a little bashful around new people he wanted to impress.

“They said they’d be really happy to meet my new family,” Bob assured, reaching over to ruffle his hair, “And, of course, they’re welcome in the crew. You’re my family. That means my crew is your crew. That’s what ‘crew’ means.”

“Good,” Frank puffed his chest out, “I don’t wanna have to fight my way in. It’s embarrassing for desert born to lose to a city born, and I don’t wanna wound their pride.”

“Hey,” Bob knocked their heads together, “It isn’t embarrassing to lose to a city born. Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking shit and you don’t wanna be in their crew, anyway.”  
“Yeah?” Frank grinned, “So they won’t be pissed that I’m from the Shadows?”  
“Nah,” Bob shrugged, leaning back and closing his eyes, “Besides, there are always shadows. Maybe the sun hides them, but…”  
“But they’re there.” Frank repeated, like he was filing it away for later. It always made Bob think about what he said, before he said it. Frank was something, someone, that Bob would do anything to avoid fucking up.

“Yeah, Frankie. They’re always there. Don’t be ashamed of your roots, kid.”  
“Like I could be ashamed of the city,” Frank scoffed, “It’s my home. But the desert will be cool, too, I think.”  
“Yeah,” Bob agreed, “It will be.”

That night, when Frank and Iero were both sleeping, all curled around each other yet somehow managing to pin Bob down with them, he took the quiet moments to think about his own family.

He hadn’t really thought about them, taken the time to relive a memory and dwell in his feelings on them, since he’d lost them. He had buried the hurt under helping Iero, trying to make sure Party Poison was realistic enough to understand that people were going to die and Blue was idealistic enough to understand that not _every_ person was going to die, buried it under making sure Frankie never had to deal with anything like he had. Looking back on it, maybe what he’d done had been the best thing after all. He wouldn’t have lasted long, mourning as intensely as he wanted to. Now, so many months later, with Frank gripping his hand like a lifeline and Iero there to make sure he didn’t stumble too badly, he didn’t think he could mourn, even if he wanted to.

Maybe, and there was that ‘maybe’ again, but maybe, the secret to survival was to forget the things that hurt too badly to handle and just live in the moment. Moments made a lifetime, and a single lifetime was all Bob could ask for. Maybe he hadn’t wanted that lifetime, those months ago, when he was slamming his fist so hard into the new, pure white of the wall masking what had happened to his family that he’d stained it red and pink. But it was different, now. To some, months wouldn’t ever be enough to recover from what he’d recovered from, but to Bob, it was just long enough to find Frank, and that was all the time he needed.

It was unhealthy, and he knew it, that he had put so much stock in the survival of a pitiful little street rat with lungs that sent him into hardcore chest attacks that stopped his breathing for minutes at a time and the ability to catch literally every disease he came into contact with, but there was something in Frank that Bob had lost when he’d seen his mom fall to the ground in a puddle of her own innards, and Bob would be damned before he let a single fucking thing take that from Frank like it had been taken from Bob. That spark of life, of hope, in Frank, meant more to Bob than even his own survival.

“Frank?” Bob had to ask one day, when he’d woken up from a much needed nap to find Frank crouching in a shadowed corner, muttering something to himself, “You okay?”

He expected Frank to jump up, spin around, laughing about this or that. Instead, Frank stood and offered a closed fist to Bob, looking a little proud and a little nervous, “I made you something,”

“Me?” Bob couldn’t help but ask, letting Frank drop whatever it was into his hand. He didn’t tease Frank for the flush on his face, because it made Bob happy to see him like that. Instead, he opened his fingers and looked at what Frank had apparently been so intently making for him.

It was roughly cut, the wood used just a little bit rotted, but not enough to have to do anything about it, and strung through with enough of a chain for Bob to wear comfortably. The chain actually consisted of what looked like three different chains, held together through little hooks and clamps, but Bob loved it immediately.

“Frankie, this is really good. Where’d you find this?” He couldn’t help but smile, turning the little ‘F’ charm in his fingers over to look. It was smooth, like it had been sandpapered. So much effort had gone into the carving, so much love and care, that Bob couldn’t see a single imperfection in it.

“I carved it,” Frank crowed, the pride in his smile all too apparent. He showed Bob a plastic knife, bent and shattered in some places, and a small blade dulled by woodwork, but all Bob saw were the small nicks on Frank’s fingers, the reddened areas where he’d scraped against the wood while he whittled. “It’s a protection charm. It’s gonna protect you during the Parade, so you can never take it off. Okay?”

Bob, through a lump in his throat, unhooked one of the clasps and settled the charm around his neck. It swung a bit before finally stilling in the middle of his collarbone, low enough that he could tuck it into his shirt for safe keeping, but high enough that it didn’t tangle terribly, either.

“How’s it look?” He managed around the _thing_ in his airway.

“Like a carved protection charm. It isn’t a fashion statement,” Frank sassed back, much to Bob’s amusement. Iero grinned from where she was walking down the other side of the alley, nodding at Bob’s new charm.

“I think it looks great. You did good, Frankie.”

Bob pressed his fingers against the charm, half afraid it would suddenly shatter under the light pressure of his touch. “Yeah,” He finally spoke up, trying not to show just how emotional the charm was making him. He thought he’d tricked Frankie, but Iero was giving him a knowing look. “Thanks, man. I’ll wear it forever.”  
And he meant it.

“Good,” Frank nodded imperiously, “Maybe it’ll work after the Parade, too. The Used crew won’t be able to prank you with city luck on your side.”

“See?” Bob ruffled Frank’s hair, grinning when he was swatted away, “Always looking out for me. What would I do without you, Frankie?”

“Die,” Frank shrugged noncommittally, like he had no idea just how true his words were. “You two are real lucky, you know? Not everyone gets a me.” He pasted his cheesiest grin on, and it made not only Bob, but Iero, laugh.

“We know,” Bob nodded, feeling all the affection and happiness Frank had let him feel again welling up, “We definitely know how lucky we are.”

Frank went on a little longer, but Bob focused on tucking the necklace safely away, to be hidden from anyone or anything that thought it looked like a good thing to try to steal.

-

Time between then and when Frank came home with the solution to the stalemate the Black Parade was in was what Bob would think to be the best time of his life, until he was forced to forget that he’d ever had a life.

It wasn’t easy, but Bob was, _finally_ , happy. Even if all _happy_ involved was barely enough to eat, cold days and colder nights, curled up and shivering around Frank while Iero worked her ass off to afford another blanket. Even if all it involved was scrounging for hours and hours to find just enough to afford food and rent-a-ments. To Bob, _happy_ was just being with Frank and Iero.

And he knew that, eventually, it would end, but he’d never wanted to admit it. Part of him just wanted to live the rest of his life like they had been, always planning ahead for the Black Parade but still so far away from it.

Somehow, when the words “I found a way out,” left Frank’s lips through gasping for breath, he knew that that time was over.

-

“What do you mean, you _found a way out_?”

“I mean,” Frank pulled his knees to his chest, “That I found a way out. I was exploring near the city, looking for tradeables, going through a few new alleys and I came across an opening. It’s being guarded, but it isn’t closed off.”

And even as Iero plainly said it was a trap, Bob knew it was the only one they’d have and they were running out of time.

“What are we gonna do?” He finally asked, once Frank had fallen asleep. “We have to use this chance, but...”  
“I know,” Iero nodded. She wrapped her arm around him and Bob let himself fall into her shoulder, still running his fingers through Frank’s hair to keep him soothed and sleeping, “But, like you said, we have to take the chance. Without it, we’ll all be stuck here.”

“I don’t want to,” Bob mumbled, letting himself be childish for just a few minutes, just for a little bit, “Can’t we just run away?”

She laughed, her dark hair somehow standing out in the moonlight that managed to break through their little hole in the wall. Bob took comfort in the embrace, even though she didn’t answer his question. He already knew the answer, just as much as she did.

Still, he let himself be weak until morning light, when he had to pull himself together to face the meeting that night.

“Frank,” Iero began as soon as Frank had woken up enough to understand words, “Don’t wander off, today. You and Bob are going to the meeting.”  
“You mean, you want me to go?” Frank frowned, “You never want me to go.”  
“Bob doesn’t know the way.” She pointed out, “It’ll be up to you. I’m going out, try to find a new way through the wall, if I can.”  
“But, mom,” Frank started to argue, ripping apart half of his bread, “What about,”  
“Don’t worry about it,” She smiled, just a little, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and disappeared.  
“She’s really mad,” Frank mumbled when she was out of sight, looking down at his hands.  
“Not mad,” Bob shook his head, “Just...concerned. Don’t worry about it, Frankie.”  
“But…” Frank didn’t cheer up much. He looked too guilty for Bob’s liking, so Bob shoved his shoulder lightly.

“Hey,” He pulled a face, just a little, “Listen to me, Frank. All you did was find a place to get us out. Whether we use it or not is up to Blue and the others, got it?”  
“I know,” Frank nodded, biting into his bread to hide his face. Bob wasn’t convinced and he flicked Frank’s forehead, smiling when Frank reared back and practically growled at him.

“Look,” Bob tossed a small piece of his own bread at Frank, hitting him in the face. Frank ate it, like Bob had wanted him to, and Bob continued, “All you have to do is not leave my side. They’ll want you to show them the way, so you will, but I promise to stay by you, no matter what. Once that’s over, your part is done and it all goes to them.”

“Are you sure, though?” Frank bit his lip, “I don’t want to be the cause of people dying, Bob. I don’t want to be like Better Living.”  
“Frank,” Bob said firmly, sounding a little more harsh than was really warranted, “You could _never_ be as bad as them. Ever.”  
“And why not?” Frank argued, “What would make me leading the Parade to death any different from what they do?”

“Because you’re not leading anyone to death,” Bob shook his head, “And because if people die in the Parade, it’s because they chose to take the risk. If I die in the Parade, it’s worth it, because I’m fighting back, understand?”  
“What’s the point of fighting back, if you only die in the end!?”

“Because I’d rather die, fighting, than live like this for the rest of my life!” Bob swept his arm across the two of them, across their whole situation, “Living in boxes and alleys, always on the move so we aren’t caught and taken away by Dracs or Vixens, watching the people we care about starve to death - if they aren’t dragged away when our backs are turned! Where’s the point in an existence like this, Frank!?”  
“You’re alive,” Frank shook his head, sounding too close to tears for Bob to be comfortable, “You’re alive, so what does it matter?!”

Bob just bit into his bread and chewed slowly for a minute, “Why would I want to live if I can’t even keep the people I love safe, Frank?”

Frank just started crying, bread forgotten. Bob wanted to hug him, hide him away from the world and the pain, and the reality they lived in. Frank shouldn’t ever have to feel like that, like he had to choose between living and being free. Instead, Bob steeled himself, and kept eating. He babied Frank, he’d admit it before anyone else, because he loved him and wanted Frank to keep that flame inside of him that had drawn Bob to him so very much in the first place, but even Bob knew that he couldn’t hide Frank from this.

“People weren’t meant to live like this, Frankie. They weren’t. I wasn’t. You weren’t. None of us were. And taking away a chance to be free, even if it means freedom in death, from people who want to take that chance, just to make sure your own guilt is assuaged...that’s what would make you as selfish as Better Living. No one tells anyone else how to live, or how to die.”

“Bob,” Frank sniffed, all red eyed and so fucking young. Bob knew, in his head, that he wasn’t that much older than Frank, not really. But he also knew, in some place even deeper than his brain reached, that Frank was his responsibility. Frank had saved him and loved him and forced Bob back into the world, torn him out of the darkness that not even the city’s shadows could reach, and back into the sun Bob had missed on every worst day of his life, and even though Bob knew he was mostly ruins, that he’d been fucking razed to the core and then salted so nothing much could ever grow again, Frank had implanted himself and grown like a fucking tree, thick trunk and branching limbs and leaves that touched Bob wherever he could reach and dig into. Physically, they weren’t that far apart in age, but Bob felt like an old man, like he’d lived for too, too long, before Frank had shown him that there was still at least one thing left in Bob’s life that he could protect. He hadn’t been able to save his family. He’d missed too many months, over a year, to be of any use to his mini crew in the desert, but he could still do everything in his power to keep _Frank_ safe. All Bob wanted, now, was to make sure Frank was safe.

-

Poison and Blue were already going at it, when Bob shoved the door open and gently pushed Frank through. It irritated Bob, just how often they fought, but it always turned out for the best. Usually, they could pick at and fuck with each other until the decision they’d been brutally murdering each other over had solved itself - at least to Bob.

It was the same thing this time around as it had been for the last few months: namely, that they still had no way out of the city that didn’t involve a total destruction of the Better Living regime. Bob hadn't much seen how arguing was helping, but Blue blamed Poison and Poison blamed Blue, and nothing Bob could say would break it up, so he said nothing. Instead, once he'd settled into his usual spot and let Frank get comfortable, he nudged Frank so Frank could do it.

Bob never forgot how loud Frank was, but his yelled "Hey!" was seemingly louder in the enclosed space. That, or the significance had lent something extra to it in Bob's ears.

"I have a suggestion!" Frank continued, staying strong even as his loudness dragged both Blue and Poison to him. He didn't often talk, usually because Bob preferred that he not catch Blue's attention lest she try to talk him into some heroic, rebellious stunt, but also because Frank - for his near constant chatter and brilliant laughter and smiles - was more of a listener.

Still, it shut Poison and Blue both up, to have him talk. It was about the only time Poison ever shut his trap, when Frank had something to say. Blue just looked irritated. Bob might have given her a contemptuous look to keep her quiet while Frank spoke, but he wouldn't admit it.

"Look," Frank started, trying not to look nervous under all the attention, "My mom knows a way out. I'll show you."

"What?' Blue crossed her arms, giving Frank a thorough once over. She did the same to Bob, so he just nodded, confirming Frank's words. He didn't know why Blue put so much stock in his opinion, but now of all times wasn't when he'd ask. " Why didn't you say anything earlier, kid?"

"Because," Frank puffed up, because he hated being looked down on, "It's already been discovered. They left it open, didn't close it off. I don't know why. It's probably being watched, but we've been frozen out and there aren't any other options."

And then he shrunk into Bob's side, his nerve giving out under the stares around the table. Bob squeezed his shoulders and then punched him in the arm.

"I'm proud of you, kid."

Frank gave him a grateful smile, turning back to the table when Poison spoke up.

"Okay, kid," Poison nodded, "Show us."

So Frank did. Already, he knew the way like the back of his hand. He was one with the city, a part of her in a way that even Bob wasn't, and it was like magic to watch him blend so seamlessly with the walls, slip through with such little effort that he hardly noticed when he began to leave the group behind. Bob had experience keeping up with him, but the others didn't so it became his job to slow down enough for them to keep up. Frank kept his promise without complaint, not leaving Bob's side no matter how deeply they went into the city. It wasn't until Bob was getting just a little bit panicky, seeing too much white streaked with dirt instead of dirt streaked with white, that they stopped. Then it was back to comfort, dark alleys and twists and turns that no self-respecting Better Living operative could possibly get through without assistance.

Frank stopped, finally, after bringing Bob's nerves to the very brink they could stretch to. It was a wall and it took Bob a few seconds, but he finally spotted the opening. It wasn't very wide, or tall, but it would have to do. There were six Dracs guarding, a number of cameras Bob could see. It wasn't much security, but it didn't need to be. They were a stone's throw away from Better Living's back door.

The others would want to watch for a while, so Bob settled. He didn't care to watch the wall, but he did, interspersed with checking their surroundings and making sure Frank hadn't somehow come down with one of his breathing attacks, and he did so without a word for almost an hour. He heard movement soon after, Blue's sign to retreat, and he and Frank turned so Frank could lead them out.

Bob already knew how this would play out, so he decided it would be best to prepare Frank for the shit storm that was rolling in.

"When we get back, they'll start yelling again. He won't think it's safe to use, Blue won't care. She'll win by default, like usual,"

"But if it isn't safe, why would we use it?"

"Because it's our last chance," Bob squeezed his shoulder, "If we don't leave soon, we won't be leaving at all. Nearly two years, we've put this off. Any longer and they'll withdraw support."

Desert born were known for their generosity, sure, but they were known for their fickleness just as well.

Just like Bob had predicted, the fight started almost before they'd entered the building. Big decisions like this had usually been set beforehand, so Poison could bring his crew if he needed to, and Bob probably should have sent word to Poison beforehand, told him to be prepared. But it was too late so all Bob did was watch the two of them fight, and play mediator when it went too far. He gripped Poison's shoulder, deceptively gentle, when Poison got the look that Bob knew meant he was seconds from launching himself at Blue. He'd been outvoted, so Bob didn't need to tell him Bob would have joined Blue's side on this one. It was the right decision, but he wasn't naive enough to think they could do this without Poison's unwavering leadership for their mob of hundreds to depend on, and he didn't want to alienate their star player.

Poison was emotional and, truthfully, Bob couldn't tell if it came from his desert roots or his time in the city, but he let Poison grip his wrist to anchor himself without thinking about it. Finally, he got a hold of himself, and deflated. He was disappointed, Bob could see it plainly, but he still put on one of his better smiles and turned to Frank. Bob could see it unsettle him, in a good way, much to Bob's amusement. Poison taped his fingers against Frank's shoulders and nodded.

"Thanks, kid. You did really good today. My crew and I owe you, a lot."

Frank stuttered something, flushing, and Poison - just like Bob - couldn't help but smile.

Poison nodded at Bob, in thanks for stopping him, maybe, and left without another look back at Blue.

Frank watched him leave, a stupidly besotted look on his face.

"He..."

"Good job, Frankie," Bob couldn't help but tease him, "You actually talked to him. Step one of _Woo Greasy_ is now in effect."

"Shut up," Frank muttered, sounding far away, "He smiled at me."

"I smile at you all the time," Bob pointed out, rolling his eyes, good-naturedly.

Frank stuck his tongue out at him, finally snapping back to the real world.

"You aren't him." He reasoned in return. Bob couldn't help but laugh at him as they left.

-

Just how many people would actually get out, Bob didn't know. What he did know was that he'd be damned if Frank and Iero weren't one of the however many who did.

"It doesn't matter how many get out," Frank mumbled around the fire that night. "We'll either go together, or stay, together. Right?"

Bob felt the charm against his skin, burning a hot 'F' into his skin.

"Of course, Frankie." Iero nodded, "We won't leave you."

"And I won't leave either of you. Together."

"Together." Bob agreed, just breathing so neither of them could see the panic in him.

They ate big that night, a whole loaf between them in a sort of morbid celebration. A full stomach, probably - maybe - due to its rarity, always put Frank into a deep sleep and he was the first to bed, curled into the nest of old, ripped clothing and thin blankets. Bob and Iero took up guard on either side of him and their fingers mingled as they touched him. Bob was half terrified that when he blinked, Frank would disappear. The look on Iero's face mirrored his own.

Into their silence, he finally asked what he'd been wondering since Frank had brought the God forsaken hole in the wall home.

"Why didn't you tell me about it?"

His voice was low and steady, relaxing in case Frank woke up. Frank had a habit of rising if Bob let anything slip in his voice, some instinct in Frank that always made him aware to Bob's distress. His rough hand was gentle in Frank's hair and he thought, in an offhanded way, how dumb it was, all shaved short on the sides and dyed blond and the floppy Mohawk tinged a washed out red after months of use. He couldn't stop touching him, needing the physical connection. He knew the day was coming, and soon, when they'd be leaving, and the worry and fear in his system was strange enough to put him too on edge to focus on anything for too long except Frank and Iero. He wished he could be like Frank, water that bent, and not so much like his own family - all too breakable with just the right touch.

"It isn't safe, Bobby," she sighed, her voice even quieter in that same silence Bob had tried to break, only to fill all the more.

"We know,"

"No," she rubbed her face, leaning against him just a little. It wasn't often that she took comfort from him, but he didn't hesitate to lean back.

"I mean, it's watched. Baited. BL will be there within seconds. Seconds, Bobby. Maybe, if we're _lucky_ , half of us will get out. The other half isn't going to be so lucky."

"So..." Bob gulped around the knot in his throat, "So, we just need to make sure that...that he's in the front half. With the motorbabies."

She choked back a sob because she saw what he was saying and nodded. "Yeah."

She turned to face him, over Frank, and he tried not to notice the gleam of tears in her eyes. She looked like Frank, earlier that day, all red-eyed and upset.

"I'm so sorry, Bobby," she roughly wiped her eyes, "I'm so sorry you might not make it through this "

"Hey," he nudged her, unable to not smile. It made him happy, that she loved him enough to mourn, "I know what I am. I know what he is to me, to you. You two are my family now. He's special. We both know he is. I...I'd be glad. Proud. If I could die to protect him, it'd be okay. Being with him is as close to the sun as I'll ever be."

She nodded, not quite able to respond. He knew she had been like him, lost her way into the desert and lived her life in the city. Years and years without the sun on her. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She'd had that smile for thirteen years.

He looked within his heart to see if he was lying through his teeth, and wasn't shocked to see that he wasn't. He'd heard the stories, giving your colors for a better tomorrow. Frank was his, was _their_ , better tomorrow, and Bob would gladly give himself up to the Sun and Sand, or to the Smog, Shadows, and Deceit, if it meant Frank would be alive until that tomorrow was achieved. Bob was just grateful to the desert and city both that he'd been able to be with them. If he died, so be it.

She cried, tears streaming for hours, but didn't make a sound. They set together until the sun rose in the desert. When Frank woke up and smiled, it felt like that sun had broken through the purple clouds for just a moment.

Bob didn't know how it happened, or maybe he did, but Frank had forced his way in and flashed that too-bright little smile of his, and Bob was ready to die for him. Bob couldn't find it in himself, in that barren wasteland with a single, giant tree sprawling through it, to mind.

-

Frank had an attack the morning of the final meeting and he was forbidden from coming with Bob. Bob didn't mind, because what he told the rest of the meeting wasn't meant for Frank's ears.

"Hey," he raised his hand when he walked in. Poison and Blue were, blessedly, silent, so he continued while he had the chance.

"I talked to my friend, she knows some shit about that hole. It's baited. I'd say about half of us are going to die. We mentioned that, but it's been confirmed by her estimate, too. Just wanted to put that out there."

No one said anything about it. Instead, they finalized Parade plans, relief coordination’s and the specifics of moving so many in as fast a way as possible.

It ended quietly, with a final word from Blue.

"This has been a long...hard journey for all of us. Bob already told us our numbers but it's a chance we all are willing to take, whether we like it or not. I just wanted to say that it's...it's been good. When the day comes, my crew and I support the back. I've spoken to all of them and we agreed that it was our decision to get us through this. Poison, I want you to lead."

"What?" Poison gaped, "Blue, you'll die!"

"I said," she cut him off, "My crew and I agreed. We would never ask anyone to do something we weren't willing to do "

"Then neither can we," Poison shook his head. "Blue,"

"Someone has to lead," Bob cut him off, "Stop arguing. You and your crew are the only ones who can do this,"

"Bob, they'll die!"

"Some of us are going to die." Blue agreed, "But I'm going to try my best to make sure it's not me. I'm willing to go down, Poison, but don't think I won't fight to the last tooth and nail to stay alive. Don't fucking underestimate me."

Poison clamped his jaws shut and breathed out.

“Okay,” he agreed, tightly and reluctantly, “Fine. My crew and I will lead the Black Parade.”  
“My friends and I will escort the motorbabies,” Bob nodded, “And Blue and her crew will surround and protect. Are we all in agreement?”

“Yeah,” Blue nodded, speaking for both herself, her friends, and - just this once - Poison, “We are.”  
“Great,” Bob closed his eyes. They were too young for this, all of them. Anyone would be too young to make these decisions.

“See you guys later, then.”  
“Later.” Poison repeated softly, leaning his elbows on the table and covering his face.

Bob and Blue both left him to his mourning. Neither wanted to interrupt.

On the way back to their hideout, Bob thought about what Blue had said. Looking back on his own thoughts of the last few nights, since he’d heard about the hole, he realized that he was _resigned_ to dying. He was almost scared that he _wouldn’t_ die, because once he was back in The Used, he’d have to deal with everything that had happened to him in the last two years.

He didn’t want to think about it. At the same time, he didn’t want to leave Frank, or Iero. He _wanted_ to stay with them, keep being happy and safe. He didn’t want to die. He _would_ , if it was a choice between himself and Frank, but he didn’t _want_ _to_ , and he thought that maybe the fact that he was so accepting of what might be his death could be one of his problems.

He returned home with a new determination. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to _live_. He wanted to keep fighting.

And maybe it wasn’t much. Maybe what Bob _wanted_ in life wasn’t what he’d ever really gotten, but Bob, Noise Control, Bryar, all of the parts of him that made up who he was, wanted to live, and that would be enough.

-

Before he'd fallen in with the Iero clan, Bob had managed to save a sizable nest egg. In the last two years, he'd spent most of it on food and warmth for the three of them, but he'd kept a little left for emergency use. He knew he should have saved it to be used in the desert, but he wasn't even sure he'd make it to the desert, for all that he was determined to fight for the sun on his skin and the sand in his veins again, and Frank wouldn't have to worry about carbons from the city when he'd been accepted into The Used, so he didn't feel too badly using some of it. Besides, after the intensity of that fight a few weeks ago, and the coming storm in two days’ time, he felt he almost deserved it. A last Harrah, before shit hit the fan.

The last of his egg was spent on a single sheet of paper and five hours on the rent-a-ment drums. He called in a favor and found Frank a nice, if beaten, guitar, and convinced Iero to give up her desperate search for an alternate route for the day so they could go on a final family outing.

“I can’t play,” Iero laughed a little when Bob convinced her to sit on the stool behind the drum kit.

“He’ll show you,” Frank laughed from where he was sitting on the ground, carefully twinging at the guitar in his lap, “It’s fun. You’ll like it.”

Bob showed her how to put her hands around the sticks so she didn’t hit her fingers, and then helped her through a short series of drum beats. She and Frank played a short, fast tune together, and Bob watched them, listening to the music and basking in the easy feeling of being with them. The last few weeks had been difficult and tense, and the explosion between Frank and Iero hadn’t been fun, but it had finally loosened the air around them enough for Bob to breathe easy again.

“Hey, Bob, let’s try to get through _Come As You Are_ again. Mom can sing!”

“Sing?” She raised an eyebrow, “Frankie, I sound like a crow.”  
“M _o_ m,” Frank rolled his eyes hard enough to hurt, and Bob couldn’t but laugh, exchanging a look with Iero, “Don’t you know? Singing isn’t about sounding good.”

“Then why don’t _you_ sing?” She challenged, “And I’ll listen. Your dad’s side of the family was so fuckin’ musical, they sang all the time. Let’s see if you can multitask, kid.”  
“I can!” Frank puffed up and it always reminded Bob of a bird when he did that, or a puppy. “Just watch!”

“I’m watching,” She teased.

The two of them played through, over and over, until it was perfect. Frank could multitask plenty and by the time the five hours Bob had rented out were through, Frank’s voice was barely audible and he was deliriously happy with himself. Iero was too, and she broke out - somehow - a small brick of chocolate to split between them.

-

It was the best day of Bob’s life and, before he had forgotten everything but Frank’s sun-filled grin and that soul-deep hate for BL, the memory of it gave him strength through the harsh times that followed.

-

Bob stood by Party Poison on the day of the Black Parade Rebellion. Years of waiting and planning, leading up to this day. Iero and Frank stood at his side, the three of them clustered together. Hundreds of people had joined the final progression, an obscene amount of motorbabies that Bob was going to have to worry about on top of keeping Frank safe and at his side, but Bob had promised and in only a few hours, he would be free - be it by desert or death.

“Ready?” Poison mumbled under his breathe, barely glancing at Bob.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed, not looking away from the group of people in front of them. Poison breathed out, stepped up to the tabletop where Whole Oats and War Baby had stood that first meeting, so long ago now, and called the attention of the final Paraders.

Silence fell almost before his first “Okay,” echoed.

He glanced over his shoulder at his crew and then he was straightening his shoulders. Bob didn't know if Poison did it on purpose, but when he spoke to a crowd, he had a way of making you look at him. He exuded leadership and confidence with every word and it would have been reassuring to Bob, had Bob not already known that most of them were going to die and Bob would probably have to kill some himself to make sure Frank and Iero were safe.

Poison rubbed some hair out of his face and started talking again, " As you all know, we've been planning this for...for a long fuckin' time, and it's finally here. This is your last chance to back out because it only gets dangerous from here."

No one moved, so Bob just tightened his grip on Frank's thighs and made sure he was steady from his perch on Bob's shoulders.

"Once we make it through that wall, there will be relief crews just out of sight with packs and supplies. A little farther than that is the bazaar, a marketplace for anything else. Any and all children will be put in the center of the group, and if I or any of my crew see you try to sacrifice any of them to save yourself, I will ghost you, myself."

Bob looked over the group and made sure every person knew that, if that rule was broken, Bob was who they'd deal with well before Poison got to them.

The crowd began to move, shift and turn until the motorbabies had found themselves in a safe circle in the designated place. Too many for Bob to be comfortable, really, but it was what it was.

"Follow me," Poison brought the attention back to himself, "Don't get lost because we aren't stopping. If you have a weapon, stand towards the edges and fight back."

Poison clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Bob couldn't do that, didn't want to show Frank how stressed out and worried he was, so he pretended that Poison's steady inhale was fortifying him, as well.

"Some of us won't make it. Some of us will not survive this march. But you will die protecting your fellow people. Your life won't be in vain, and that might not hold comfort for you but there are at least thirty children in this crowd that will have you to thank for their lives when they take this system down."

The Parade began to mumble and Bob could see the anger sweep through it from the front to the back, parents bitter that they had to send their children away to keep them safe and people Bob and Poison’s age, all pissed off and ready to fight after a life living in garbage and shadows.

“If you die, if you go down, then go down fucking fighting. Take every single piece of Better Living scum that you can with you.”

Bob spotted Blue off to the side of their ‘stage’, charging her weapon. Around the fringe, people began to load ray blasts into their zaps and pulling out their weapons of choice.

Poison jumped off the table, nodded at Bob, and Bob helped Frank off his shoulders. He kept his arm around him, kept him from getting lost in the crowd as Bob led he and Iero through to the motorbabies.

Poison and his small crew passed them, not stopping until they’d reached the front of the crowd. Bob didn’t want to let go, but Frank had to lead them to the hole, so Bob nudged him ahead a little bit and Frank took lead. The first step felt monumental to Bob. Iero squeezed his hand as they walked next to each other, and Bob squeezed back.

“If something happens,” She started quietly, “I want you to know I love you like another son.”

“I love you,” Bob nodded, breathing steadily, “I love you a fucking lot, Iero. Thank you for everything.”  
“We’ll be fine,” She smiled a little, “One way or another.”  
“As long as he’s okay,” Bob agreed.

It was still mostly dark outside, but Bob had no trouble following Frank with his eyes. A few times, Frank almost disappeared, but he always slowed down without fail, remembering that he was meant to be showing the way, not escaping. Bob didn’t know the path by heart, but his steps were familiar enough due to the few times he’d had Frank run him through the trail, and he didn’t slow down, nor did he lose control of the large huddle of children. Iero was surprisingly chill with them and they listened to her without much of a problem. They all looked at Bob, so trusting, and Bob almost regretted that he’d give them all up if it meant saving Frank. He was going to do his best, though, to keep all of them alive, to get them all out. He was nothing if not loyal, but he was also determined.

As they walked, Bob noticed one of the motorbabies, small and redheaded and ahead of the others.

“What the fuck,” Bob frowned, “How did you...it doesn’t matter. Come on, kid, you’ll be left behind.”  
The kid, looking confused and scared, tried to argue, but Bob just grabbed his hand and pulled him into the other motorbabies. Bob hadn’t taken a head count, and he could see his mistake, but he didn’t want to leave any kid behind on accident so he tried to take one as they walked. He kept losing track after twenty five, all of them moving too fast to keep count, so he just gave up and tried to focus on the ones in front of him.

The boy tried to slip away, get back to his parents, probably, but Bob stopped him, going for stern and a little scary, “If you leave, you’ll be trampled or left behind. Stay here, we’ll protect you.”  
“But,” The kid started to argue again, then Bob had to stop listening because a douche almost walked over one of the smaller motorbabies.

“Hey, fuckhead!” He snapped, taking his eyes off the redhead, “Fucking watch yourself!”

When he looked back, the kid was gone. Bob gave up on him, because he couldn’t save someone that didn’t want to be saved, or was just too stupid to be.

When he turned back to the front, Frank was back in Iero’s arms, they were at the hole and Poison was aiming for one of the dracs. Jet Star held up three fingers high in the air and he counted down, one after another. When the last finger went down, three shots rang out, and then three more, and the six Dracs were gone.

The crowd surged forward, and the Parade broke apart. Bob had hoped it would last just a few minutes, just long enough to get the motorbabies, Frank, Iero, and himself out, but no such luck. Blue yelled for the crowd to keep formation, but it wasn’t working. Bob moved to gather the motorbabies tighter together, but it was too late and suddenly they were being split in two by a giant wave of fuckheaded adults. Bob was shoved back and he almost lost his balance, pin wheeling his arms until he was able to catch himself.

“Fuck!” He yelled out loud, just to release some frustration, and then he was shoving through people, trying to find Frank, Iero, and the other half of his charges.

Finally, he found Frank, and a small group of kids, and Bob, feeling panicky, grabbed his shoulders. This wasn’t going to work out, Bob knew it wasn’t, so he did the only thing he could  to get Frank out.to go ahead.

“Go, Frankie! Get the kids out!” He ordered, “Iero and I will find you when we’re all out and we’ve got the other half,”

He shoved Frank towards the hole and he could see the conflict in Frank’s face, not wanting to leave but knowing that the motorbabies - all shivering and crying around him - needed him to step up.

Finally, he nodded and raised his voice so it could be heard, “Follow me! Hold onto each other!”

Bob watched him shove his way through people to get to the hole and watching him leave hurt like something was ripping itself out of Bob. Like the tree in his wasteland was uprooting itself.

“Bob!” He heard and he turned, scanned for Iero and the other kids.

“Iero!” He finally spotted her, not far away, but far enough that he’d have to fight his way away from the hole to get to her.

He made it to them quickly enough, fifteen motorbabies clinging tightly to her, too afraid to move.

“Follow me!” He yelled, and it got their attention enough that it worked, made them a little more willing to move with Iero and he.

Screaming, different from the angry shouts of before, suddenly swept through and Bob caught glimpses of red, of black leather, and he knew he was fucking doomed. There was something in him that told him, with no hesitation, that he was going to die, and there was nothing to do about it.

It was a hollow feeling, but he’d been hollow for a long time, and he couldn’t let it affect what he was doing now. He couldn’t.

He turned and Iero grabbed his hand. He squeezed it. He wouldn’t let go, not until she did.

He shoved and pushed until he had found something of a direct path. In the way of that path was Frank, looking worried and terrified out of his mind. Behind them, Bob could hear the crying - through “Draculoids!” and “Fucking Vixen, oh my God!” - of “Gate! A gate’s falling!”

“No,” He got out, “No, Iero,”

He felt her hand loosen, and he turned, looked at her and felt his eyes burn.

She nodded at him, her hand falling away from his until just their fingers mingled, and Bob gulped the sobbing noise he wanted to make down, and turned back to Frank. He looked so young, too fucking young, and too fucking scared. Bob felt his heart constrict. He wondered, far away, if his mom and dad had gotten this feeling in the pits of their stomach when they realized that they were going to die and weren’t going to be around to protect him anymore. Iero’s face had reflected what his mom’s had, the last time he’d seen her, just before she’d died.

“Go,” She said from behind him, “Protect him, Bob.”  
“Yeah,” He said, licking dry lips. And then he started to run. He felt her fingers slip from his as he moved and it broke his heart just a little. He’d give anything to be able to save them both, save Iero _and_ Frankie. But he had to make the choice, and Frank came above everyone to Bob, even himself and Iero, even the motorbabies behind him.

He charged through the broken crowd, shoving and pushing and fucking damning people to BL because once you were down in a mob like this, there was no getting back up, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. If they’d waited, just a few fucking minutes, Frank and Iero would both be okay, and all of the motorbabies would be _okay_ -

He didn’t stop until he reached Frank, so close to the hole - only a few feet - but still too far in to be _free._

“Bob!” Frank sobbed out, looking behind Bob to Iero, his eyes too wide to be anything but purely terrified.

“We love you, Frankie,” Bob said desperately, instead of everything else he wanted to say that would take too long. _Thank you_ and _You mean everything to me_  and _You’re my sun, now_. He pulled Frank into his arms as tightly as he could, squeezed until he couldn’t anymore and kissed Frank’s stupid fucking hair, tried to hold back his tears because he’d wanted to see Frank grow up in the sand dunes, wanted to hear Frank announce to The Used that his new desert name was _whatever he’d chosen_. He’d wanted to see Bert and Jeph and Dan and Quinn again, wanted to take Frank and Iero to the memorial for Branden, introduce himself as Noise Control.

He’d _wanted_ so much.

But if all he could have was Frank, alive, even without he and Iero, than he’d take it with a fucking _thank you._

Bob shoved Frank away from him, pushed as hard as he could, put everything he had in his arms, and sent his little fucking body _flying_ through the air, and out of the hole in the city wall and into the sand of the desert Bob would never feel on his own body again.

And the gate clanged close with a grating, echoing noise, ending the chapter of Bob’s life that he’d always think of as the best of it.

Bob realized, on what he finally realized was actually the worst day of his life, that the sun was still hidden - just like every other worst day of his life.

Except this time, he knew that - even with all of the worst happening - that Frank was okay, and so the sun could rise again, some day.

Frank laid on the ground, watching through the gate in shock as Iero finally made it to Bob’s side. Tears streamed down her face, unchecked, but Bob didn’t say anything. They just squeezed their hands together again.

“Get the kids!” He heard Poison shout from the gate. Good, Bob was glad that he and his crew had gotten out. He hadn’t seen or heard Blue or her crew in a while and he only hoped that they were too busy fighting to open their fat mouths. If it hadn’t felt like the tree in him had been brutally ripped from the earth, roots and all, he would have bother turning to check.

Instead, he tuned back into Poison, because Poison was at the gate, near Frank, and Poison cared for Frank for all that they didn’t really speak to each other. Poison could make sure Frank got to The Used.

“Get the fucking kids out!”

Bob pulled Iero, and the kids, to the gate and he realized that the bars were widespread, wide enough to fucking tease at them. The motorbabies could fit through though, starved small with malnutrition, enough to squeeze through.

Bob lifted the first little girl without warning and did so, shoving her through the bars and into Poison’s arms. She was passed off, and Iero was handing the next one off to someone else, the two of them and the ones on the free side working to get the second half of the motorbabies through.

“Keep him safe,” Bob barked, or tried to, but his voice came out broken, too pleading. He didn’t much care.

“Keep him safe,” he got out, again, a little clearer, pushing another kid through, “Even though we can’t. I have a crew waiting, just get him there, please. They’ll take care of him.”  
Poison nodded, not quite able to respond. He looked like he was going to cry and Bob had always known that Poison was a fucking baby, but it still was nice, knowing that he would be mourned. He didn’t want Frank to mourn. He wanted Frank to start a new life, be happy. But it was okay if Poison did it. Bob and Poison had had a nice relationship, steady and just close enough that Bob would have considered Poison a friend. Bob could tell that Poison had already lost a lot, too much. What was one more friend?  
Poison was someone he trusted to care for Frank, at least.

Blood fucking gushed around them, proof that BL was getting too close for comfort. Iero pressed the last motorbaby through just in time, and that was it. They had done it. Frank, and the motorbabies, were safe. He'd done his duty and he could at least die in the knowledge that he and Iero had saved a future generation.

He tried to keep that thought in his head when he and Iero were being ripped away from each other and thrown to the hard ground. Almost immediately, they were being wailed on by Drac fists and Vixen heels. Iero was a fucking super woman and didn’t make a fucking sound, so neither did he. It was like they were giving each other strength, even as they were kicked and kicked to the point that Bob wasn’t sure how much longer he could even stay conscious. He was just able to make out her face, and he wanted to apologize again, tell her how happy he was that he’d gotten to be with her and Frank, how happy she’d made him feel, how much love he had felt from her in the place of his own mom. He wanted to tell her that he was glad that he’d met her, even though it had ended up with the two of them here.

“These?” A gruff voice asked and the violence finally stopped. Bob wanted to yell, because his bones felt like they weren’t even a _thing_ anymore, like they’d been beaten into a powder inside of him. He kept his mouth shut, though, because Iero hadn’t even grunted under the assault and he didn’t want to disappoint her, he couldn’t disappoint her, not now.

Someone knelt next to him and grabbed his hand. The next thing he knew, something like a needle was being shoved into his wrist, into his vein, and it hurt _so fucking badly_ , like fire being directly shot into his bloodstream. He could barely yelp though, too weak to do anything after being kicked so hard in the chest that it felt like all of his ribs had been broken.

“She’s at ten percent,” The voice said again, “But the blond one is at eight seven.”

“Let’s keep him, then,” A sweet, high voice said gently, like she was ordering the Drac to give all of his money to the city rats, “Get rid of her. You must be hungry.”  
And before Bob could even react, a Draculoid fell onto Iero.

He ripped her apart.

Bob had never seen something so brutal, so fucking disgusting as the fangs and claws that protruded through his mask and gloves as he tore into her without hesitation.  
“No,” Bob got out, hands twitching. She broke her silence immediately, struggling to defend herself, but she couldn’t do anything, not in her state. Her screams would haunt Bob forever, nightmares he’d have even when all memory of the time was lost.

He couldn’t move, no matter how hard he tried.

 _NO_!! He wanted to scream, _You can’t do this! Leave her alone! LEAVE HER ALONE!_

He wanted to yell and fight back, but all he could do was twitch his hand until it was close to her. When she finally went silent, when he literally fucking saw her soul leave her body and her wide, wet eyes roll into the back of her head, her bloody hand fell onto his. A pretty, black high heel stomped on their hands and Bob was too weak to even cry out. His eyes watered, and tears began to fall before he could stop them. He couldn’t sob, but he wanted to.

“Drag him around,” The sweet voice, the literal voice of Satan, chimed like a bell, “Show the alleys what happens to rebellions like this. Then take him through the city proper. A block or two. Past Stump’s apartment, at least.”  
“Stump?” The Drac on Iero’s corpse set up, wiping at his mask in a mimicry of manners, “What for?”  
“A mere whimsy, my boy.” The voice, a scientist, laughed, “I thought I saw his brat around here and I’d like to set him on the path to a Better Tomorrow early, before he ends up in a place like this alley scum.”

“Got it,” The Drac stood and Bob almost wished he hadn’t. Bob couldn’t recognize Iero’s face. It was too torn up, bashed in and bloody, and covering Bob. Bob wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in his stomach to get out and he wasn’t strong enough to even gag. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t turn his head. He just cried.

“Go on, then,” The scientist teased, “Get on it. I want him at Linda Vista by noon, though, so don’t take your time, okay?”  
“Understood.”

“Wonderful, darling. He’s all we need. You can kill the rest.”  
“Don’t test them?”  
“No point.” She twisted her foot over Iero’s hand on Bob’s, his bloody fingers curled weakly around her limp ones. “He’s all we need. Just one will due. I doubt we’ll get a match that’s higher than eighty seven.”

Bob felt rope go around his wrists, and he started to move, dragged across the hard ground until it scraped through his thin clothes and picked at his already aching skin. He sobbed in pain, and finally disappeared into the vastness of nothingness, let himself go.

Frank smiled in his mind’s eyes, and they were back in that moment two days before, Bob and Iero pounding on the drums while Frank played his borrowed, beaten up guitar and sang for them.

-

Bob woke up in a white room. There wasn’t a smear of dirt to be seen, except for on himself and the bed he’d been laid on.

When he set up, his body ached, but not as badly as he’d thought it would after the beating he remembered. It was still unbelievably painful to move, but he breathed through it so he could look around.

There were two beds, both with a thick, white blanket and fluffy pillow, and a bright light coming from the center of the ceiling. He spotted the door, blending into the wall except for the vague outline which gave it away. It had no handle and no hinges, so Bob left it for the time being. There was a small corner, separated from the rest of the room by a white curtain which had been pulled back, revealing a toilet and a showerhead. There was no sink, but there was a small shelf with two large, white bottles labeled with smiling faces and the words "Shampoo" and "Conditioner", respectively, and a bar of perfectly white soap.

It was a nice room, but Bob hated it more than he’d ever hated anything in his life - baring Better Living.

He was tacky, grimy from dirt and sticky with sweat and tears and blood. He didn’t want to think about it. He hadn’t thought he’d need to do this, again, but he tried to find that place he went to from the years before, that place he’d found that made his family dying, his crew disappearing from his life forever, okay.

When he found it, he closed his eyes and let it wash over him.

And it was okay.

He was still covered with blood though. His own, Iero’s, but not Frankie’s. Not Frankie’s blood, and that meant Frank was safe. Even if Bob was tortured for the rest of his life, he’d never truly regret saving Frank instead of himself, or even Iero.

He dragged his body to the little area under the shower head and stripped slowly, halting movements that took into account how sore and painful his body was. If he was going to die, he wanted to be clean of the blood, at least. The water wasn’t freezing, but it wasn’t hot, either. He scrubbed himself fast with bruised knuckles and then stepped out of the spray to piss and drip dry his body. When he was dry enough that he could put his clothes on without too much of a struggle between material and wet skin, he pulled his boxers back on and the undershirt he’d found a few weeks ago, and then the ripped up, ratty jeans with new holes he didn’t remember them having. He left the shirt he’d been wearing off, because the jeans - as bloody and grimy as they were - would be useful, but the shirt was a waste of time. It was too ripped up to offer any protection or warmth, so he just said _fuck it_ and left it, along with any of the small accessories he’d collected in the pocket. On second thought, he stopped and kneeled back down to scrap through the pile of trinkets with a single minded determination. It didn’t take long for him to find the mismatched chain, the hand-carved ‘F’ attached to it, and he could still remember Frank making him promise not to take it off with a completely serious face because it would protect him.  
He smiled, just a little, and the thought of Frank made him happy, for just a few seconds. He’d never see the little shit again, but it was worth it. Frank was _safe_ , and Bob had always known that to die - and he was a dead man walking - would be worth that.

Bob gripped the charm, laid back down, carefully, on back the bed closest to the wall and farthest from the door, and went to sleep. He was tired, and he didn’t think he’d mind death coming for him while his eyes were closed.

-

The next time he opened his eyes, there was a scientist standing over him with a bright smile, her hair tied and her pretty face done with light makeup. Three Dracs stood behind her, waiting for orders.

“Hello, Robert!” She laughed, her voice sweet like bells.

Bob knew who she was immediately and he hated her even more than the room.

“Are you not going to answer?” She crossed her arms and pouted, “That’s rather rude.”  
He didn’t respond, didn’t know how to talk to the person that had murdered Iero and torn him from Frank and didn’t particularly want to.

He wanted to keep that silence when one of the Dracs reached over with a fucking taser stick and shoved it into his stomach, but at some point between so much pain that he blacked out for a few seconds and a searing, bone-deep ache, he got out, “What do you want, you psychotic bitch-!”

Somehow, the taser grew stronger and Bob realized, offhandedly, that he was near seizing

“Let’s try that again,” She smiled, her tone not changing one little fucking bit, “Hello, Robert!”

“Hi!” Bob snarled out, his whole body rocking without his permission. The taser immediately went away. The pain didn’t, not for a few minutes longer, but it eventually leveled back out to what he could handle comfortably.

“Great! That was great, Robert! Now, introduction time!” She sing-songed, her enthusiasm not forced in the least, “I’m Doctor Death Adder! You can just call me Doctor Addy.”  
She patted his head like he was a fucking dog, and set on the edge of the bed he was still twitching in, “Now, Robert, you are probably very confused as to why you’re here and not dead.”

Bob didn’t say anything back, not quite able to get his mouth to work rather than bite his tongue.

“Well, you see, dear” She continued, like he’d spoken, just looking at her nails with a frown, “We at Better Living Industries, we just want the best for everyone, and, Robert, you’re friends just weren’t the best they could be. And they had no _interest_ in becoming the best they could be. But you, you, Robert, you’re going to be perfect.”  
She smiled, stood up like they’d been having a friendly chat, “And I know just who will make you perfect. You’re initial testing showed an even eighty seven percent, and it’s only climbed when we tested other factors. The two of you will fit right in together. He’s very loyal, as well, you know.”

“What,” Bob finally hacked out, trying to sit up.

“Don’t worry, dear. Boys, take Robert to the restorative room. It’s time for the procedure."

Bob tried to struggle, and he reached out and grabbed her wrist, squeezing as hard as he could.

She laughed at him and the taser stick was back, high enough that, when he lost himself to the blackness again, he stayed lost.

-

There was a short time, between when he blacked out, and when he fully processed everything again, where he was conscious but not quite awake yet.

It began when he groggily opened his eyes and tried to sit up, only to be stopped by white straps around his wrists, ankles, middle, and head. He felt pain race through him, sear against skin that felt pulled tight across his bone and muscle. His head felt like it was too fucking small, stuffed with cotton, and he was itchy and tight everywhere, like there was something picking and picking, trying to break free inside of him. He had no idea what it could be, had never experienced anything like it before, so he fucking ignored it and focused on the sharp pain of sliced skin on his forehead.

“What…” He gasped out, trying to wiggle out of the restraints. On a good day, or even a kind-of-good-day, he would have been able to. But this wasn’t just a _bad day_ , this was the worst of Bob’s life, so he stayed put.

“Oh, finally!” Doctor Death Adder’s voice chimed, “I’d thought you’d failed.”  
She stepped into his view and leaned over him, pulling his head up by his hair so she could single handedly fasten what he thought must have been a collar around his neck. Bob was too out of it to struggle so he just let it happen - this once.

“Failed?” He rasped, instead, because if he couldn’t move, he’d like to know what the fuck was going on.

“Don’t worry about it,” She said lightly, stroking through his hair in a pale imitation of care. He wanted to spit on her. “For now, let’s just get you back to your room, dear. We’ve got a schedule to keep so the faster you sleep off the drugs, the faster we can get down to business.”

Bob didn’t quite know how to process the foreboding feeling those words brought up in him, but he didn’t want to let the fog in his head pull him back into sleep. He stayed limp while they wheeled him out of the bright white room, through a corridor just as white as the room before, and through what he could only assume to be the door to his newly assigned cage. His clothes were gone, but the bed he’d slept in was still unmade and it was a small comfort, to have something that hadn’t been fixed or taken from him for the sake of conformity. They unstrapped him and then tilted the bed and he fucking rolled off of it gracelessly, landing in the one he had claimed as his own with a pained whine ripped from his throat.

“Sorry,” Doctor Death Adder said with faked sympathy, “Won’t happen again. Just sleep, dear.”

She walked out, her two Dracs following behind her, and Bob was left alone again.

As soon as they were gone, Bob groaned as loudly as he could in the hopes of releasing some of the pain that was building up in his head, and closed his eyes. He wished that he could turn the lights out, take the stimulus of such brightness away so he could stop the headache before it was too late.

All it did was add noise to what felt like a space already too full for anything else. There was something _wrong_ , they had done something that wasn’t _okay_ , and he had no clue what it was, but it was making his whole body scream in discomfort. It wasn’t _pain,_ but it was something he wanted nothing to do with.

Maybe she was right. As much as Bob didn’t want to listen to a fucking thing she said, maybe sleeping off the drugs would make him feel better.

He let his eyes fall shut and the fog in his head slowly drifted over his thoughts.

_So, Bob, huh?_

Bob snapped open his eyes and turned towards the door to see who exactly had fucking snuck in while his eyes were closed, but the room was empty and he was still alone.

“What the fuck,” Bob grumble, closing his eyes again. Is this what drugs like the happy pill he’d been pumped with did? Fucking _voices_?

_I’m in here, you dumbass._

“In- What the fuck!?” Bob forced himself to sit up, “Where the fuck are you, motherfucker, I’ll fucking cut you-”

 _Cut me?_ The voice laughed, but Bob couldn’t spot the fucker anywhere. Was it a fucking projection, some type of fucking intercom?

_I’m in your head, idiot._

“In my...head?” Bob felt dizzy, too dizzy to keep his eyes open. He fell back onto the bed, his head beginning to spin. Someone else in his...head?”

 _You’re a fast one,_ the voice laughed, _Just sleep, kid. They won’t be back for quite a while._

Bob didn’t know what to say back. What did you say to a voice _in your head?_

All Bob knew was that he’d only been in Better Living’s possession for a day, tops, and he was already going crazy.

He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and he didn’t want the voice to speak to him again, so he let himself drift back into sleep.

-

The next time he woke up, he was stronger and the world was clear. He felt better, like the drugs had left his system, and he felt even more pissed off than before. He took another shower, lukewarm, and tried to remember what happened, ignoring the tray of food and water in front of the door.

“Fuck, I was tripping,” He rubbed his face, walking back towards his bed once he’d redressed in the same clothes. He doubted they’d let him keep them for long, so he was going to enjoy real clothes while he had them, “Hearing a fucking _voice_ , shit, Bob...what the hell was going on in your head?”

And so what if he was talking to himself? If he was hearing voices, it was too late for him, anyway.

 _No,_ the voice he vaguely remembered from before spoke up, _You were hearing me, bug._

“Fuck!” Bob jumped, whirling around to look for the voice. His ankle gave out under him and he swore again as he dropped, ending up on his ass, ankle stinging and a fucking _voice in his head_ , laughing at him, in an empty fucking room.

“Holy shit…” He looked around again, reeling, “Oh my fucking God.”

 _Close_ , the voice laughed again, and then Bob’s eyes lost sight of the white room - instead, the imagine of a creature too terrifying to describe appeared to him. It was huge, too big and far, far too old for Bob to even comprehend.

And then it was gone, just there for a split second, and the white room was back.

 _That’s me,_ the voice filled his head again and Bob got the feeling that it - whatever _it_ was - was smiling.

Bob didn’t respond. Bob did not say a single word. Bob was not going to engage the fucking _voice in his head_. He just got up and dusted his knees and ass off, though there was nothing to dust off.

_Don’t ignore me, shithead. I’ve been locked away for far, far too long and you’re the only being I can talk to._

“You aren’t real,” Bob finally gave in, “You are a figment of my imagination. A - A manifestation of my trauma or - or whatever.”

 _No,_ the voice snapped and it was loud enough for Bob to flinch back, shove his hands to his face and cradle his suddenly aching head, _I am not a **manifestation** of your trauma, you worthless bug. I am **ancient**_ **,** _I am **powerful,** I am **ravenous!**_

“Stop shouting!” Bob snapped back, “We’re sharing a fucking head and you sound like an idiot!”

The voice went quiet and Bob shouldn’t have known that it was fucking _indignant_ , that it couldn’t believe Bob had _spoken_ to it like that.

“So,” Bob broke the angry silence after a few minutes, “Um, if you aren’t a voice I’m imagining, what the fuck are you?”

It didn’t respond, so Bob made himself pick up the tray of cold food and water and settle onto the bed. He pulled apart the bread and it didn’t feel or taste like it’d been cut with dust or anything. Bob’s mouth watered even as he ate it. It wasn’t until the bread was gone, and it felt heavy in his stomach like guilt that he’d eaten it even though the people who had murdered Iero and lost Frank to him forever had given it to him, that the voice spoke up again.

 _Your scientists call me an...AI._  
“Artificial Intelligence.” Bob hesitated, “You’re a robot? They put a fucking robot in my head?”

For a few seconds, the voice didn’t respond. When it finally did, it was much more sly, much more amused and it reminded Bob of the troublemakers in the alleys, lying through their fucking teeth just to cause problems for other people.

_Yes. Yes, I am, and yes, they did._

“Get out,” Bob snapped, his hands clenching around the edges of the tray in his lap, “Get out of my head, right fucking now,”

 _I can’t,_ the voice argued, losing the amused tone in favor of what seemed to be genuine upset, _Do you think I’d **choose** to share a body with the likes of you? Young and still growing, nearly sick with starvation and physical damage? Your mental state alone tells me you’re on the cusp of death, and you think I’d willingly bind myself to you?_

“How can I get you out?” Bob demanded instead of responding to those words, instead of throwing the absolute fit he wanted to. He’d had his moment to be childish, with Iero, and he wouldn’t take any more for himself, not even in a situation as fucked up as this.

 _You can’t,_ the voice responded, _I’m a part of you now. It’s Xibalba’s will._

“No need to sound so disgusted.” Bob glared at the wall across from him, because the voice in his head was _in his head_ and didn’t have a physical body, “And who the fuck is Xibalba?”

_As if you are pleased with our circumstances. Xibalba is none of your concern, you puny human. You can barely wrap your small mind around **me** , I don’t want to even imagine what would happen to your psyche if you tried to comprehend **him**._

Bob scoffed, crossing his arms and bringing his legs up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around them and rested his head on his knees.

“Whatever,” He settled on, closing his eyes. The voice didn’t respond, because how was something so old and ‘all powerful’ supposed to respond to ‘whatever?’

Eventually, the quiet got to Bob, though. Even in the desert, it was never silent. There was always noise, the sands shifting or the crew sleeping around him, just outside his tent. In the city, it was even more so, never a silent moment without trash shifting, rats scurrying, people walking and talking and crying all around. The complete silence of the room drove him up the _wall_ , so he resorted to talking to the fucking AI in him.

“What…” he started, trying to think of something to say, “What should I call you, then? If we’re stuck together for the rest of our lives, I can’t just call you _the voice_  forever.”

 _Not **our** lives, _the voice responded, _When you perish, and you will, your body will become mine fully. Until then, you may call me…_

And it went silent, like a dramatic fucking pause or something, before it continued with all of the arrogance and pomp Bob could ever imagine coming from something _inside_ of _him_ ,

_Call me Ravenous._

“That’s stupid,” Bob said out loud, after he’d already thought it and figured _Ravenous_ had already heard it.

For just a moment, Bob knew he’d fucked up, and then a hole opened inside of him, within his very _being_ , in the center of his wasteland where Frank’s tree had once stood. It was never-ending, forever yearning and so painful and so fucking hungry, so _fucking_ hungry that Bob

was being consumed, eaten whole from his own mind out. He could feel the very tips of his fingers and toes and exactly nothing else, and at the same time, he could feel everything from the muscles in his body twitching to the blood flowing through his veins and his bones shifting as he spasmed. He couldn’t feel the bed under him, but he could feel how the air flowed around him, wrapped around his body. That never ending _hunger,_ that insatiable need to consume tore through him to the point that he could think of _nothing_ , absolutely _nothing_ , but how very much he wanted to _eat_ the whole world.

And then it was gone and Bob was on the bed again, unaware of how his body was moving in such intimate detail, hunched over the tray and gripping it so hard he had warped it. His breathing was too hard for his throat and his chest ached like he hadn’t been for too long, before he’d started gasping so hard.

“R-Ravenous,” Bob got out, voice whisper soft through his grated throat, “Ravenous, it is.”

After that, they didn’t talk again. Eventually Bob tossed the tray to the ground as hard as he could to make some sort of noise that wasn’t his own voice, and curled up under the thick blanket of the bed - his bed, now.

His last thought was of Frank, always near to his thoughts but at the forefront when he had nothing else to think about, and he hoped with everything he had that Frank was safe. He gripped the charm around his neck as hard as he could and hoped that it left small imprints of the “F” shape in his palms while he slept.

-

He woke up _screaming_. There was so much _pain_ , so much, so much that he couldn’t hold back his sobbing and _begging_ for it to end. He felt his skin _ripping_ apart, his mind breaking open and spilling his brains all around him. His ribs cracked and broke apart, the flayed skin of his chest falling away in tatters like ripped cloth, revealing his insides for whoever was doing this to him.  
Ravenous screamed with him, screamed and screamed and _screamed_ like Bob and they screamed and cried together, Bob unsure if the wetness all around him was blood or tears or both, and even when he fell back into the darkness, he was still filled with _unimaginable_ pain, confusion and terror, all blurred together through he and Ravenous both.

-

He drifted back in a lifetime later, after having floated through the pain for so long that he’d thought he was dead, and he was in the afterlife. Hell.

He could barely see through the blur of his eyesight, fresh tears and crusted salt from the tears before blinding him, but he could see blood, so much _blood_ , and that was enough to have him panicking, looking for whatever comfort he could find in the confusion and fear.

 _Ravenous!_ He thought as loudly as he could, scared and unsure and just _needing somebody_ to be there. With him.

 _Bug_ , Ravenous responded immediately. It didn’t make Bob relax, didn’t rid him of his fear and uncertainty, but it made him feel...not so alone.

 _What...What happened?_ he asked, not even able to move his arms.

_They came while you were sleeping. They wanted to...test me out. I’m an experiment. You and I._

Bob tried to speak out loud, but it just _hurt_ so much. He gave up and just tried to keep his thoughts clear.

_Everything hurts._

_Just relax,_ Ravenous assured, sounding irritated and angry, and in as much pain as Bob, though he dealt with it much better, _I’ve taken care of it. It’s best if you try to stay under for now. You don’t want to be awake for this, and they are **far** from finished._

Bob wanted to reply, say something back, something like “What about you?”, but then there was more white hot pain shooting through him, starting from his legs and flowing through his body in waves of pure agony, and he was screaming and screaming again, falling back into the haze of _panic_ and _pain_ , all to a cacophony of Ravenous’ own crying in his head.

-

It continued for days and days. Bob had thought that first time was bad, but it was just the very tip of the iceberg of torture by Doctor Adder’s hands. He would be thrown back to his room, the fucking cage they’d created just for he and Ravenous, and he’d crawl to the bed if he was strong enough,  or he’d pass out on the floor if he wasn’t, but he’d always wake up in the sheets, clean and cold thanks to Ravenous and his dislike of warm water. Apparently the AI could control his body when he was asleep - or just unconscious - and he was able to take the searing pain of frozen water against the cuts and bruises and burns and neat, precise stitching in odd places that Bob just couldn’t. Trying to control Bob’s body when Bob was conscious was tiring to him, but with the amount that Bob slept, Ravenous had a fair turn piloting their shared vessel.

They’d eat, rest, and talk a little if Bob could handle something as complex as thinking whole thoughts, and then they’d be dragged - sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes just trying to fight to the death - back into the back rooms for more tests and experiments.

They were testing Ravenous, how he’d affected Bob’s body, his healing and health, his ability to withstand pain. Apparently it was beyond anything that they’d seen before, because one day they cut him open, awake and strapped down and feeling _every single inch_ of it. He had screamed and _screamed_ until they’d strapped his mouth shut, and then Ravenous had taken over because Bob hadn’t been able to _handle it_ , and Bob hadn’t remembered anything else for what had ended up being days.

He kept track of time by how many visits to the back room they took him to. When he’d first asked, Ravenous had mentioned that they took him back once a day, every twenty four hours, exactly. He counted days by bright lights shining into his eyes, needles poking and scalpels cutting, the sting of healing. When they discovered that pissing Ravenous off made him come out, Bob began to count days in blank rages he was triggered into, when Ravenous would forcibly take control and not return Bob to his rightful place for hours of missing chunks at a time.

“You’re part of Project Suiteheart,” Doctor Adder had explained once, when he and Ravenous both had been too exhausted to fight back. She’d set on the edge of the table Bob was strapped to and pet his hair like a dog, talking in her sweet voice, “You’re only the second experiment to survive the implantment of the AI, you know, dear. That’s a very big achievement. The first success was stolen years ago, now. Now he,” And her voice went starry as she thought back, “He was a true success. He was integrated young, so they grew together. Not like you. Don’t misunderstand, I’m absolutely thrilled that you’re alive! And the way the two of you converse, how it cares for your body when you’re asleep...it’s absolutely amazing! A very real step in the advancement of a Better Tomorrow, love. But it just isn’t _controllable_ in you, Robert, and that is _very_ disappointing.”  
“So just...kill us,” Bob had rasped, ready to beg. He’d hoped, before the torture, that he’d be able to hold out. That he’d be able to stay strong, for at least long enough that Frank could have been proud if he’d known that Bob was still alive. He hadn’t even lasted the first night before he was _begging_ for death. It was sick. Bob was disgusted with himself. Bob also didn’t care.

“Oh, darling,” She crooned at him, all loving voice and gentle touches where only minutes earlier she’d been searing him with a brand to see if Ravenous could regenerate completely charred flesh. The worst part was that Ravenous _could_ , and it was a continuous pain of his body _shedding_ the damaged skin and replacing it at too many times the speed of normal healing processes. The healing, truthfully, was worse than the pain of the injuring, sometimes.

“We could never _kill_ you. Then there would be _no_ successes, instead of just a partial one. No, dear, you and your AI are going to be with me for _quite_ a long time. We’re going to be great friends.”  
Bob wasn’t ashamed to admit that he cried.

-

Bob’s life, he thought as he looked back on it, before he forgot it all, was a series of snapshots forever immortalized in his head.

He realized, somewhere between the first two hundred blood lines on the wall he used to mark the days and the second hundred, that every time he ran through it in his mind, it grew shorter.

-

 _You’re so small,_ Ravenous said softly into his brain one night.

Bob didn’t say anything back, forcibly relaxed in his bed. The blankets had been pulled to his chin by Doctor Adder, a sick mockery of affection. He’d been so tense all day that when he’d been placed in the mattress, his muscles had given out and he was unable to move.

 _So young,_ Ravenous continued, just talking, _You act much older. Your memories...have you ever known a moment in your life when you weren’t hopelessly devoting yourself to something, bug?_

 _No,_ Bob finally agreed, _I’ve never._

_And what will you do when these memories are gone? Because they’re going, bug. Every day, this Better Living shit is eating them up._

_I don’t know._ Bob didn’t open his eyes. It was never dark in his room, but he could pretend, when his eyes were closed, that he was in some alley or another with shitty sky cover, far away from everything.

_And this Frank -_

_I’ll **never** forget Frank!_ Bob snapped back, _Never!_

The charm wasn’t on his neck. He’d taken it off long ago, in case they took it while he was in the back room. He’d hidden it in his mattress, ripped a hole in it and stuffed the charm between the fabric and the foam inside. The chain was wrapped around his fist now, the press of the wood in his palm.

 _Okay!_ Ravenous surrendered, _Okay! I’m just saying. Was it worth it, bug? All this pain, just to throw him out in the desert, all alone. How do you even know he’ll fucking survive?_

 _He will._ Bob replied with utter conviction, _Of course he was worth it. He’s going to destroy Better Living._

 _Bug,_ Ravenous sighed, _You’re a fucking hopeless romantic. How can you be so fucking broken and so hopeful at the same time?_

Bob didn’t need to think about it.

 _Because he’s the sun,_ he tried to explain, _You’d understand, if you met him._

 _He seems like an insolent brat to me,_ Ravenous scoffed, _What’s so great about him?_

 _He saved me._ Bob breathed out. He relaxed for real, thinking about Frank’s smile. It hurt, so much, but it was a bittersweet pain in him, buried in the wasteland instead. A little seed, smothered but strong. _He saved me._

 _Yeah, well, who’s gonna save you now, bug?_ Ravenous demanded, growing suddenly angry, _Who’s going to save **us** now!?_

Bob didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, he brought up an image of Frank, his favorite. It was a mental snapshot of that day, the day the three of them - he and Frank and...and _her,_ the one whose name had been taken a long time ago - had played. He couldn’t remember what they’d played, had stop being able to recall it so long ago, but he still remembered how happy he’d been, how happy _Frank_  had looked, behind that beaten guitar.

 _I want to live._ Bob admitted, a secret buried so far in him that he hadn’t even dared to think it before Ravenous had allowed him to unearth that seed, just a little, _I want to live and see him do it. That’s why I haven’t died yet. Why I’m still...fighting. I want to **live** for him. _

Somehow, with one of Frank’s sun-bright smiles at the forefront of his thoughts, he thought that maybe Ravenous had understood.

-

Ravenous mentioned it, every year that they were together, locked away inside the cage with nothing but torment, pain, each other, and the memory of a smiling boy that Bob refused to let go of no matter how hard they pulled.

They celebrated together, because if Bob had to choose what insane robot intelligence went into his body, he’d have chosen Ravenous, who had seemed to have developed some sort of genuine affection for Bob in return. It was probably due to their shared circumstances, but Bob hadn’t know that someone could call someone else _bug_ and mean it in a fond way.

It was by this count that nearly four years passed in the haze of torture. Those years blended to Bob. He grew up, physically, but his body could never reach the age his mind had grown to. Nothing of interest happened in those years, if one didn’t count the strange and impossible happenings of having an artificial intelligence implanted in one’s mind and befriending that otherwise violent and betrayed intelligence through shared torture, and the deconstruction of one’s whole life through the repossession of memories. Bob did not. He didn’t think to count it, because by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late to hold on to much.

And so those years blended and passed with nothing of interest occurring.

By the time an unfamiliar women in black opened his cage door and threw something that could be both a body or a sack of garbage for all that Bob cared for it into the room, Bob remembered nothing outside of Linda Vista, except for a puddle of blood - two, in fact - that he’d once thought of as his mother, a vague outline of how he’d been captured - saving _Frankie_ \- and Frankie, himself. He had a face left, of a boy, with wide eyes hard with a rough life, but still so _innocent_ , a face that loved Bob, and a face that meant more to Bob than anything.

That face, Frank, and his charm, were all he had, when the first interesting thing in his new life happened to him.

The Vixen - and that was what she was, he remembered, - closed the door without even looking at Bob, leaving the...yeah, that was a body, the body in Bob’s cage.

 _It’s a test_ , Ravenous chimed in, _I don’t know for what, but don’t touch it._

 _It might be infested,_ Bob agreed, _We’ll ignore it._

And ignore it, they did. It didn’t move for a while and Bob was pretty sure it was dead - a _body_ , well and truly - until it finally did move and Bob realized that it was a man. Not a body, not quite yet. He set up, this stranger, and rubbed his bruised jaw as he looked around the room. He spotted Bob, curled up tight in the corner of his mattress, Frank’s charm around his fist, and he blinked in surprise.

 _You’re glaring, bug,_ Ravenous pointed out. Bob didn’t much care.

The stranger didn’t react, though. He just stood and went over to the shower area, where he used the toilet and then showered city grime off of himself. When he came back from behind the curtain, he’d lost the dirty look about him, but he was still beaten raw. Bob had long ago lost his street clothes and was dressed in the pure white of Better Living. Seeing jeans again made Bob want to reach out, rub his fingers over the material and relive, for just a moment, back when he had the freedom to wear clothes like that.

Instead, when the stranger approached him, slowly but with intent - like he was afraid Bob would lunge at him but he was prepared to dodge it - and held out his hand for Bob, introduced himself as “Brian,” with the first human voice that didn’t belong to Better Living that Bob had heard in four fucking years, Bob turned his back to _Brian_ , and ignored him.

 _Brian_ would be dead soon, a body if he was lucky and a Drac if he wasn’t, and Bob wanted nothing to do with something as impermanent as a _roommate_. At least, not one that wasn’t inside of Bob’s head.

He heard Brian drop his hand and sigh, and then the shuffle-hop noises of Brian limping away on the bum leg Bob had noticed earlier, to the other bed. Bob had never slept on that bed before, had never really touched it, and the squeak of it was a little shocking.

Later, Bob was dragged - kicking and screaming for all that he was worth - out of the room and when he and Ravenous were thrown back in hours later, _Brian_ was gone. And that had been the end of the interesting things that had happened to Bob.

Or at least, he’d thought so, until he’d woken up the next...morning? to discovered Brian’s small form curled up on itself, all tight and protective, a few feet from the door.

The nice thing to do would have been to move him to the bed, because Bob didn’t think Brian was in Project Suiteheart and he didn’t have someone like Ravenous to move his body for him, but Bob wasn’t nice. At least, not anymore. So he left him, because Brian would be leaving soon and Bob didn’t want to grow...attached.

Except, Brian didn’t leave. Every morning, Bob would open his eyes, expecting that Brian would be dead - by his own hand or otherwise - or at least, not there, anymore. Except he always was.

By the end of the month, Bob had come to accept that Brian probably wasn’t going anywhere, fast. He’d lost his tan, gone far too pale to be healthy, and his skin had become sallow instead due to maltreatment. His eyes had bruised and sunken into his face and his head had been roughly, and terribly, shaved. The bald parts of his cranium had been cut open and stitched back up, still bright red and bloody and swollen.

Bob had thought, when that month had passed without even a strong inkling for Bob to talk to him, that Bob had escaped his previous disposition of taking in broken wings. He’d thought that he’d grown out of it, had it tortured out who he _was_ , but he should have known better. He should have known not to meet Brian’s eye when he was dragged limply back to the room, at the end of that month, because there was still fire there. The flames that had been scrubbed to embers in Bob, the flames that he’d seen and loved so much in Frank, were there in Brian. Even through skin pallid from neglect and abuse, eyes gray and sunken, even with puncture marks on his inner arms and wrists, stitches layered upon each other across his head and spine, that fire still burned so bright that it nearly burned Bob. Made him warm. That fire was _hot,_ was _dangerous_ , was _bright_ and _defiant_ , even as Brian was hurt so _much_ in the back room. And, even though Brian knew who Bob was, knew about Ravenous, had seen his rages, had seen the impossible of Ravenous controlling Bob’s body when he was too weak to do it himself, was kept awake every night by Bob’s screaming nightmares, he still offered that fire to Bob with a hand every day. That hand and a quiet, “Name’s Brian,” every fucking day.

“Brian,” Brian offered, at the end of that month. He didn’t look bored or disappointed, like it was just routine to him. Sometimes Bob thought he did it, just so he didn’t forget his own name.

 _Don’t do it,_ Ravenous commanded, _Bug, don’t you fucking dare. He’s a dead man walking. He isn’t **Frank,** and he doesn’t need your fucking **protection** , so don’t you fucking dare._

 _I can’t help it,_ Bob mentally shrugged, _He’s on fire, Ravenous. He doesn’t need **my** protection. Maybe **I** need **his.**_

 _I’m going to set **you** on fire,_ Ravenous threatened, but it was too late. Bob searched his mind, hard, tried to remembered what his name was, the one that wasn’t just Doctor Adder’s _Robert_ , or _Subject zero-zero-two_ , wasn’t _Frank’s_ name.

“Bob.” Bob rasped out in response, when Ravenous took pity and helped him out, filling the quiet of the room. His voice was rough and shaky and his throat gave out towards the end of the word. He hadn’t spoken out loud in too long, nothing that wasn’t screaming, sobbing, or begging.

Brian blinked at him, look tired, like he didn’t quite understand. After a few seconds, filled with the two of them just _staring_ at each other, his face - his eyes - lit up and went bright.

“Bob!?” He asked, excitedly, “Your name is Bob?”

Bob nodded slowly and Brian grinned. It was a real smile, much bigger and far more nice to look at than Doctor Adder’s, and it was more than Bob’s _name_  warranted, but Bob wouldn’t begrudge Brian anything that made him smile in a place like this.

“That’s _awesome,_ ” Brian said with complete sincerity, “Seriously.”  
Bob just nodded. He didn’t know how he was supposed to tell Brian that he liked his _fire,_ so he just didn’t.

-

They didn’t talk often. It hurt too badly most nights, and on the ones that didn’t, Bob was almost fearful that they’d run out of things to talk about. Conversation with Brian was different from conversation with Ravenous. It was _out loud_ and with a human. Bob heard his name, often, like Brian couldn’t stop saying it.  

Ravenous liked Brian, too, though he wouldn’t admit it. The three of them could have conversations for hours, when they were all up to it, and Brian even got Ravenous to laugh, sometimes. Usually, it was at him. At his enthusiasm. Brian firmly believed that they would - one day - be free. Bob didn’t want to crush his hopes, though, so he kept his mouth shut.

Brian, to Bob, was a comfort. Given the choice, after the first few weeks with Brian at his side, Bob wasn’t sure he would wish Brian out of the hell they lived, because he knew what it was to not be so alone anymore. Ravenous was different. He felt like a part of Bob, now, not like a separate entity _inside_ of Bob. When it had just been them, Ravenous had been enough. But having Brian there, it had made Bob remember what he’d wished for. He wanted to _live_. He didn’t have the fire, though, not anymore. Except Brian, he didn’t mind Bob feeding off of his own flame. Bob couldn’t imagine going back to being alone. He never wanted to go back to being alone.

Luckily, for the both of them, Bob didn’t have to make that choice, though. Instead, he clung to the hand Brian offered him, clung to Brian with a grip too tight to be comfortable and too scared to be mutually comforting, like a little fucking kid and not the grown man Bob was. Brian didn’t mind, though. He clung back just as hard, touched Bob’s broken back with gentle hands and teased relaxation out of him until the next time they were ripped apart.

Bob was never happy. He was never content. But having Brian there, it made it...easier for him.

Brian got his own collar. It read _PROJECT BETTER SIGHT: TEST SUBJECT 001_ , printed in bold, black type along its length around Brian’s neck. Bob had one too, remembered Doctor Adder putting it around his neck like he was her dog, and could always feel it tight around his neck like a choker. He let Brian read it to him one ‘night’, sound out the _PROJECT SUITEHEART: TEST SUBJECT 002_ for Bob to hear.

“It means you’re the first success,” Bob explained into the space between them. They laid on the same bed, curled so close together that they breathed the same air. Bob’s back was pressed to the wall, their knees interlocked so there was enough room for Brian to lay on the bed with him, but Bob didn’t care. It was a different _thing_ than he’d shared with Frank, no less _close_ but a different type of intimacy that he had with Brian than he had with Frank, or anyone else in his life - as far as he remembered. He’d never shared the breathe of an exhale with someone and that was what he had with Brian.

“The first success?”  
“It means,” Bob tried again, “That you’re a part of an experiment. They’ve done something to you. Made you...different, not just from how you were, but from how you fit into the rest of...humanity. Like me and Ravenous. But they didn’t put a personality in you, like they did with us. They’ve done something different.”  
Brian didn’t want to get into what they’d done to him, and Bob didn’t push. Bob didn’t want to talk about Frank and Brian hadn’t asked questions, so Bob wouldn’t either. All Brian was willing to bring up was that Better Living was trying to see the future, and they were trying to do it by inserting chips in their experiment’s brains to run probability scenarios. It was terrible, it was overwhelming, and it _hurt_.

Still, for all the questions Bob didn’t ask, he couldn’t help it when Brian was triggered into an episode - the episodes that Better Living, and how he _hated_ them with every fiber of Ravenous’ intensely old and intensely large being, had given him.

They’d been dozing, as close to a relaxing day as the three of them could get, when Doctor Adder opening the door had caught Bob too off guard for him to recover. He’d begun to hyperventilate, already prepared to fight them, and Ravenous had begun to gear up to fucking battle them, too, when Brian had tried to defend them, a simple snapped out, “You’re throwing your only subject into a fucking panic attack!”

And Bob saw when the mistake had registered on Brian’s face, the pleasure on Doctor Adder’s, before Brian had begun to convulse.

Bob, if he’d been able to, could have remembered that how Brian’s body began to shake and arch off the bed was similar to Frank’s breathing attacks. But he couldn’t, so he just grabbed Brian’s shoulders and help him down so he couldn’t hurt himself, looked between Brian and Doctor Adder wildly and demanded as angrily as he could, “What did you _do_!?”

“Nothing!” She raised her hands, laughing sweetly, “Nothing at all, my dear!”

“Brian!” Bob turned back to Brian, trying to think of what to do. He finally tilted Brian’s head to the side and lifted his body up, pulled him to Bob’s chest and wrapped his body around Brian’s. Brian was small, smaller than Bob for all that Bob liked to hide in him, and Bob found the fucking super power to stretch himself along Brian so they couldn’t _take_ him, couldn’t take him _away_ from Bob. He ran his hand through the thin patches of hair Brian still had on his head, the parts not covered in thin, angry red lines of stitches, to calm his hectic, scared sobbing when the seizures finally ended. Brian gasped for breath and Bob made gentle, soothing noises, just wanting to be of some sort of _help_ to him.

“Charming,” Doctor Adder sighed out, sounding fascinated, “Something to think on. Boys, I need Brian, if you would. The small one, I mean.”

Two Dracs entered the room and Bob had never needed Ravenous before, not like this. Bob knew he wasn’t strong enough, knew he just wasn’t _enough_ to protect what he loved, not anymore, and so - for the first time in his life - Bob triggered _himself_ , because he needed Ravenous.

And Ravenous came out.

He honestly didn’t remember killing the Dracs, but it earned him quite a long session with the taser stick. They didn’t try to take Brian from him when he accidentally triggered himself anymore, either. They did begin to sedate Bob when they came to take him afterwards though, but they still had to pry him from Bob’s locked, dead arms.

The three of them, what they had, wasn’t much. It was a life Bob wouldn’t wish on his worst enemies, despite his worst enemies being the ones who had him in such a situation, but it was his. And Bob was _alive_. He wasn’t free, but he was _alive_ , and _Frankie_ was free instead, and that was all Bob had wished for.

Brian was with them for two years, when the brought The Kids in.

There were six of them, only one of which looked old enough to hold a zap, let alone rebel like Bob and - presumably - Brian had.

When they were all filed in, Bob looked at them hard, tried to picture their faces on top of the boy in his mind - Frankie - and not a one of them matched. He was almost sickeningly relieved, but he couldn’t help it.

“Oh no,” Brian set up as the last of the six was shoved into the room and the door was closed again. Bob figured that the rest of Linda Vista was full to the brim, if they were shoving _six_ new kids in with he and Brian. And Ravenous.

“Wh-where are we?” One of the kids asked, looking between Bob and Brian. Bob thought about putting on some sort of comforting face, but decided against it. There was no comfort to be offered that wouldn’t be false. They were all dirty, so they hadn’t undergone any type of experimentation, yet. Until they had, Bob wouldn’t offer them any kind of lies. Not out of malice, but more because as long as there was no hope in the first place, it couldn’t be brutally crushed under Doctor Death Adder’s perfectly polished, black stilettos and pink scalpel.

“Hell,” Bob settled on replying, because Brian didn’t seem capable, “What’s your sin?”

“Being born,” One of them, a tall, skinny twig of a kid, snapped back. “You?”  
“Can’t remember,” Bob answered honestly. He thought that would be the end of the conversation, but then one of the shorter ones was bouncing across the room, all smiling even bigger than Brian had with big, brown eyes that made Bob’s heart break just a tiny bit.

“Hi!” The kid waved, even though he was only a few feet from them, “My name’s Brendon Urie!”

“B-Brian,” Brian got out, offering his hand. Brendon took it and they shook, “This is Bob. And Ravenous. I’ll explain later.”

“Cool!” Brendon smiled, and sunshine just _oozed_ off of him, “That’s Ryan and Spencer. Behind them is Brent, and then Jon, and Dallon is the tall one!”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Brian said carefully, “Though it really fucking sucks that you’re here.”  
“Yeah,” The one Bob thought might have been Brent nodded, “Though with the market gone, I’m not sure how we managed to survive on our own, anyway.”  
“No surprise we ended up here,” Dallon agreed quietly, looking around nervously. Bob hated to break it to him, but this kid needed to be a little more than _nervous_ , that was for fucking sure.

“Market place?” Brian offered, “The one by the old Black Parade grounds?”  
“That’s the one,” Brendon nodded, a little too hard, “A bomb dropped on it. It’s all gone now. We were all separated from our families, so we were going to find them when a Vixen picked us up.”  
Bob glanced at Ryan and Spencer and something about the haunted looks on their faces, behind Brendon’s back, told Bob that their families weren’t just missing. Something pinged as familiar, but he didn’t bother chasing the thought. Old memories, discovered or not, had a habit of being taken from him quickly enough. He had to consciously hold onto Frank and not ever let go of him for even a second, and he wouldn’t jeopardize that precious memory just to find a small, unimportant event in a past he didn’t remember anymore.

“Listen,” Brian hesitated, sounding much, much too sad, “Listen, guys. You, um, you probably aren’t going to enjoy it here.”  
“Why not?” Brendon looked around, “It looks cool.”  
“Shut the fuck up, Brendon,” Brent snapped, “We’re in the fucking middle of _Linda Vista_ , you asshole. They’re going to _torture_ us and then use us in _experiments,_ ”

“Basically,” Bob agreed. Brian hit his arm and gave him a  ‘ _work with me, here!’_ look, so Bob closed his mouth and let Brian do the talking.

Jon burst into tears and Bob didn’t blame him.

Later, the six of them were herded out all at once and Bob - for some reason - couldn’t stop crying. He cried and cried, for them, for their families that he couldn’t fucking remember, for just how fucking young they were, and for the misery on Brian’s face as he’d watched them walk out. Their room, and the back rooms, were soundproof but Bob could still imagine that he could hear them all _screaming_ , could hear it echoing around the cage for hours and hours. He buried his face in Brian’s neck for the rest of the night, and just _cried_. Ravenous didn’t say a fucking word, and Brian curled his fingers through Bob’s hair soothingly. They both pretended not to notice the hot water droplets Bob could feel on his scalp, through Brian’s fingers.

Between one sob and the next, Bob was out, and he woke up the next ‘morning’ to six bodies tossed throughout the room, familiar shaved heads and scars. He and Brian moved them, shoved the two beds together and settled the six of them into places. They stole the foot of the beds, the two (or three) of them, laying on top of each other while the kids rested.

Unlike Brian, the kids got their collars the next day, and Bob took a few moments to read each, just to truly let it set in that - at any time - Brian could be taken from him.

 _PROJECT BETTER SIGHT: SUBJECT 002a_ wrapped around Ryan’s thin wrist, bright white and pitch black type leading Bob’s eye. Each of them had been labeled _002_ , though the letters progressed with Jon, Spencer, Brent, Brendon, and then Dallon, all holding _002b_ through _002f._

 _You’ve become very fast to anger,_ Ravenous pointed out a few days after their collars had been revealed. Bob didn’t want to admit that Ravenous was right, that he’d become angry at the kids for being _here_ , for being a part of _Project Better Sight_ , that they hadn’t died and become unsuccessful. The longer they were alive, the more trouble Brian was in.

And yes, Bob understood on some level that that was sick. That he couldn’t wish six children were dead, just because their lives meant that Brian’s could be in even more danger than it had been, before, but _knowing_ that it was sick and _stopping_ it were two different things.

 _I know_ , Bob finally answered Ravenous, _But I can’t help it. He’s all we have left._

 _So just make them a reason to live, too,_ Ravenous scoffed, _You’ve got no trouble adopting weak fucking kids to take care of. What’s so different about these ones?_

_They put Brian in danger._

_They’d never hurt Brian. Not permanently, at least. No murder._

_Why the fuck not?_ Bob snapped back, knowing that the ‘they’ Ravenous spoke of weren’t the kids, _Why wouldn’t they? He’s a **failed experiment** , Ravenous, his continued usefulness to them is a very, very thin line!_

 _How, exactly,_ Ravenous pointed out, _Are they going to find a **better** way to control **you** and **me** than by using **him,** bug?_

_What?_

_I’m saying,_ Ravenous sighed, _That Brian was probably going to be terminated long before they found these little fuckers, but he’s leverage over **you** , bug. So they kept him around. Threatening him turns you into a  fucking pussy and that, by extension, turns **me** into a fucking pussy._

Bob had to admit that it would have disgusted him, that they were using his feelings for Brian against him, that they were hinging Brian’s continued survival on just how desperate Bob was to keep Brian safe over himself, if he’d been able to conjure an emotion as complicated as disgust. Disgust was too complex, though, too much effort for something Bob didn’t much care for, as long as Brian kept breathing next to him, and Bob had long ago lost any ounce of pride and stubbornness he’d had, so Bob was just relieved that Brian was still with him, instead.

Bob still couldn’t bring himself to interact with them much. There were so many of them, _six_ , and he couldn’t imagine that all of them would survive as long as the rest. Bob didn’t want to take them under his wing, not like he’d let Brian take him in, and not like he’d taken in Frank. He didn’t want to hurt any more than he already did. He didn’t want to give Better Living any more ammunition to hang overhead and make him dance for it than they already had in Brian.

He kept the mentality for a week, even while Brian spoke to them and offered his hand. Bob didn’t know if Brian had done that in his life before Linda Vista, and neither did Brian, really. Bob had held on so tightly to his memories, without even realizing it, because he hadn’t wanted to lose a single one - not even the ones of the worst days of his life. Brian, on the other hand, had had nothing worth holding on to and he’d let his slip away without a struggle. Brian didn’t remember a single thing before he met Bob, not even being captured. But Brian was naturally warm, naturally willing to take control so no one else had to, naturally able to protect the people he loved without sacrificing himself to do it. Bob didn’t know what that was like, didn’t know what it was like to decide to save someone and _not_ commit the rest of his life to them. If he and Frank hadn’t been separated, however that had happened, he knew that he’d of spent the rest of his life by Frank’s side, protecting him and advising him and just _there_ with him. Brian - for all the warmth he had in his now-pasty skin, for all the fire that burned still hot and bright after so long in the cage with Bob - didn’t have that urge.

Bob had to say he was grateful. He didn’t want to lose Brian to the kids, even if they deserved, needed, a caretaker like Brian. Someone who could comfort them after they were dragged to the back rooms and hurt for the sake of Project Better Sight. Bob was selfish, Ravenous was selfish, and neither of them wanted to give Brian up.

On the last day of that week, the one in which Bob spoke exactly no words to any of the kids, and only spoke to Brian when they were curled up so tightly that Brian could hear Bob’s heartbeat through the pillow they shared, Bob saw just what Project Better Sight had done to them.

It started so quietly that Bob hadn’t noticed it, at first. He and Ravenous had been talking, in his head, about something or other - one of the stories Ravenous still remembered from the last time he was _free_ , or whatever. He’d heard Brendon say something, only to cut himself off almost immediately. It brought his attention away from his hands, which he’d been staring at unseeingly, to the kids.

The six of them had been sitting on the beds, still pushed together so the eight of them could somehow manage to squeeze into them, and Ryan looked to have frozen midword.

“Brian,” Bob warned, nudging Brian next to him. Brian lifted his head from Bob’s shoulder, where he’d been napping shallowly, and Bob felt him tense.

“It’s their first vision outside of the backroom,” Brian stood up, his hands beginning to twist and turn within each other, “Get ready.”  
“Ready?”  
“They’re going to be screaming. And seizing.”

“Shit,” Bob stood up, looking the six of them over all at once. When it started, he’d like to think that he’d been prepared, but he really hadn’t. Not at all.

First, it was Ryan; a single, sudden, jerk that set off a chain reaction in all of them, the six of them falling on top of each other and beginning to violently shake and spasm. Brian was on the beds immediately, trying to lay them flat or elevate them, unsure of what to do. Bob went slowly, because he knew that the seizing would be over soon and then the screaming and crying would start. He crawled in next to them and lifted Brent and Jon in his arms, leaned them both against his shoulders and held them tight with both hands so they wouldn’t jerk off the bed. Brian took his idea and, together, they managed to hold the six of them down enough that they didn’t injure themselves. It felt like forever but, eventually, the seizing died down and the crying, familiar from Brian’s episodes, began. Whatever happened when Project Better Sight was inserted, it wasn’t pretty. Sometimes, Brian threw up. This was different though. What happened to Brian was a complete sensory overload, where he was submerged so deeply into whatever was happening in his mind that he lost touch with reality. When he was pulled back to it, his body would be too sensitized to everything around him and it would all be too, too much.

With the kids, it was different. It was less intense in them, but no less terrible to watch.

 _I’d say,_ Ravenous spoke up, _That the reason it wasn’t working out in Brian is because his brain couldn’t handle all the stimulus. So they probably broke it all up._

_What, like each of them gets part of the vision?_

_Kind of,_ Ravenous agreed, _I’d guess that they broke up the basic senses in the hopes of reducing ‘feedback,’ judging by how they’re all reacting. Then, the data would be sent to the motherchip._

Bob realized, looking them all over. Brendon was the one who threw up, gagging and choking and nearly clawing at his tongue and throat. _Taste?_

_More than likely. The scruffy one - Jon, I’d say he’s got the auditory sense. He’s fucking gonna pop his head if he tries to cover his ears any harder._

_What can we do?_

_Nothing,_ Ravenous shrugged in their shared space, a black pit in Bob’s head that had steadily grown the longer they were together, _Except make sure the tall one doesn’t rip his skin off. I’d say he’s inherited the tactile senses._

 _Fuck_ , Bob sighed. He pinned Dallon’s hands down because he really was trying to scratch his fucking skin off, and focused on anything that wasn’t Brent howling with a hand over his nose and Spencer shoving his knuckles into his eyes.

“Ravenous says that they’ve been assigned senses,” Bob told Brian over the yelling, “Each of them are processes the data and then sending it to a motherchip.”  
“In Ryan,” Brian agreed, looking away from the others to take Ryan in. While the rest struggled, Ryan lay still, not even screaming anymore. His eyes were wide open, hazed over, and his breathing was almost too shallow to be seen. His hands would clench, and then slowly unclench, just to repeat the process moments later. It would have been scary, had Bob not been witness to Brian’s episodes, had Brian not gone through them himself.

When the cage door opened and Doctor Adder walked in, Brian stood up, blocking the bed from her.

“You can’t have them,” He snarled at her. It was almost pleading, and Bob realized that Brian really had adopted them, taken them as his. It irritated Bob, just a little, because Bob hadn’t wanted to get attached to them knowing that they were only going to die soon enough. Still, what Brian did, Bob did as well, because they were a unit, so Bob stood next to him and crossed his arms.

“What is _with_ you and taking people _in_ , Brian?” Doctor Adder sighed, hands on her hips like a disappointed mother, “You did this in your last cell, as well, and we had to dispose of their experiment because of it! If you don’t knock off these heroics, I’ll have to separate you from the rest of the experiments, and we wouldn’t want _that_ , now would we? Who would take care of dear, dear Robert?”

She was talking to Brian, but the barbs were meant for Bob, and he would have been ashamed to say that they’d worked, that he’d backed down just a little bit, if Brian hadn’t also. Bob _wanted_ to protect them, because Brian wanted them to be protected, but Bob didn’t want to jeopardize Brian. Brian was all Bob had now, except for the charm buried in his mattress and Frankie in his head, and Bob...Bob wanted to be selfish, just this once.

 _That’s my influences,_ Ravenous preened, _We compete each other, bug. How nice._

 _Shut up,_ Bob frowned in his head, _This isn’t the time_

 _I’m not joking!_ Ravenous insisted, sounding a little less amused, but still too much for Bob’s taste, _It’s about time you stuck up for yourself._

_They could die, because I won’t protect them. I’m choosing Brian over them. They’re just **kids** , Ravenous._

_You’re all kids,_ Ravenous laughed, _All of you are **children** , bug. _

_Are you trying to comfort me?_ Bob sunk in on himself when Doctor Adder pulled out the gun she used to sedate him, _Because it’s not helping._

 _Not comfort, just..._ Ravenous rose up, prepared to take over because Bob was beginning to lose himself. Brian’s hand on his shoulder, the kids’ rapid breathing behind him, their soft, pitiful whimpering, it was all sending him spiraling out of control. He couldn’t control it, and Ravenous wasn’t going to help him stay at the forefront when Bob was so fucking scared, terrified that if he tried to protect the kids, they’d take him or Brian instead. _It’s okay, bug. Let me handle this._

 _They’ll just sedate us,_ Bob tried to argue. Brian must have felt Bob’s blood flow increase, his heart rate begin to move beyond what was healthy, because he reached down and squeezed Bob’s hand.

_Sedation won’t be enough. Not if you don’t want it to be._

_But…_

_I’ll protect him,_ Ravenous promised, _Just let me out._

And it was a promise Bob believed, so he let Ravenous out.

-

He woke up to a room, destroyed. The kids were still there, though, and so was Brian. The light fixture in the ceiling was broken and the room was nearly pitch black if not for the emergency lighting coming from above the bathroom area, vaguely illuminating everything in red. It was a bad connotation, the color red, because the only red Bob had seen in years and years and years was blood, but he choked that thought down.

“Brian?” He wasn’t ashamed to say he whimpered, “Brian, what…”  
“Ravenous went a little mad,” Brian said softly. He opened his arms for him and Bob realized that, while Brian and the kids were on the floor, the beds flipped and shoved against the closed door of the room, he’d been standing, rigid, in the middle of the floor. He could see scratch marks along the door frame and, looking at his fingers, he realized he’d either broken or ripped the whole nail off of most of them.

 _Ravenous?_ he called into the black space in him. There was sand, in his head, a wasteland with a seed in the middle, dusty but alive. Ravenous, who usually filled the whole space with his darkness, his being, was nowhere.

“Ravenous!?” Bob called out loud, letting himself fall into Brian’s arms. His voice was weak, and he was more scared than he’d been in a long time. Ravenous didn’t respond, and Bob couldn’t feel him.

 ** _RAVENOUS!_** he yelled as loudly as he could, **_WHERE ARE YOU!?_**

“What’s wrong?” Brian mumbled, sounding completely calm, completely smoothed over.

“Ravenous is gone,” Bob shook his head, trying not to panic, “Ravenous is gone, he isn’t answering, what _happened,_ Brian!?”  
“Calm down,” Brian ordered, running long, scarred fingers through Bob’s hair, “Take a breath and I’ll tell you.”

Bob tried, but it wasn’t easy. He couldn’t feel Ravenous _anywhere_ , and the thought that they’d taken him, taken Ravenous _from_ Bob, was almost too much for him to handle. What was he supposed to do without him? Bob couldn’t handle being alone like this. On one level, he couldn't handle what Better Living threw at him on a daily basis. The thought of going it alone, being dragged into the backroom knowing that Ravenous wouldn't be there to catch him when he inevitably fell wasn't even worth pretending he's survive. On a completely different level, Bob had been with Ravenous for _six years_ and Bob felt _alone_ in his own body, like he was too small to fill up the space inside of him.

“Ravenous came out when they came to take the kids,” Brian finally spoke up, rubbing Bob’s temples until Bob finally went limp, “And he went crazy. I’ve never seen him so violent before. He attacked Doctor Death Adder and not even the sedation gun calmed him down. He chased them out but then he tried to get out, too. He fucked your hands all up. And then he started flipping shit, breaking the light up there and shit. The kids and I moved over here but then they released some sort of gas into the room and he went out like a light.”

“He isn’t answering me,” Bob gasped out, squeezing Brian’s arm, “He isn’t _answering me_ -”

“He’s fine,” Brian insisted, “He’s probably just knocked the fuck out.”  
“What if they took him out?” Bob shuddered, pressing his face to Brian’s shoulder. His eyes felt salty, hot, like he was on the verge of tears. Brian made a soothing noise in his throat and Bob broke, burst into big, wailing sobs into his neck, hiding his face from any cameras that happened to be watching.

“They didn’t take you out of the room,” Brian promised, “Not for a second. He’s in there, somewhere, Bob.”  
Bob didn’t say anything back for a while. He just cried, and cried. He hated crying. He hated it.

“Just kill me,” he finally sobbed into Brian’s skin, “I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to do this anymore, Brian, please,”  
“Shut up,” Brian snapped, “Don’t go there, Bob.”

He squeezed Bob, pressed and pulled until Bob was crushed to him, “You’re _not_ leaving me, Bob, you got that? So fucking cry and beg all you want, you’re _not_ dying.”

Bob pressed his face harder to him, trying to muffle his steady tears. It wasn’t until he felt a spark, like a match, in his head, that he finally was able to stop.

 _Bug_ , Ravenous answered, sounding far too groggy for a timeless hell monster, _What the fuck happened?_

 _You went crazy and got yourself knocked out!_ Bob shouted as loudly as he could in his head, _You were gone, Ravenous! I thought they’d taken you out! I thought they’d killed you! What the fuck is **wrong** with you!?_

 _Woah!_ Ravenous reeled back, _Calm down! I didn’t mean to, it just kind of...happened._

 _Kind of **happened**!? _ Bob clenched his fists in Brian’s white shirt, now covered in tear stains, _You were **gone** , Ravenous! **Gone**! I thought...I thought…._

They both went quiet after that, but Bob didn’t stop feeling around in his head, didn’t stop checking that Ravenous was still there, for hours.

-

Bob wasn’t the only one that lost it, occasionally. Of all the kids, Spencer had the worst temper, but it was Ryan who was quickest to react and fight back. Sometimes, he was even still strong enough to yell and hit at the door when they’d been brought back from the back room. Bob had never had the energy for that, and neither did Brian - even though they’d stopped taking him back there now that The Kids - a proper name for the group of them now that they were in Bob’s sphere of _giving a shit_ \- were considered a success.

“I wasn’t born to be a skeleton!” Ryan yelled through the door, banging his fists into the white wall as hard as he could. It barely made a sound against the brick and plaster.

“Ryan, stop,” Brendon sighed from where he laid on the bed. He and Jon had a habit of curling up together to the point that they were practically on top of each other, taking comfort in each other’s arms, and Jon had his head on Brendon’s stomach, napping after a rather soft back door visit. “That isn’t going to help, and you’ll only make them mad.

“ _Nothing’s_ going to help! Why the fuck _shouldn’t! I! Yell_!” he slammed his fists into the door again with another shout of pure rage.

Spencer, sitting against the wall next to the door, reached up and tugged on Ryan’s shirt. Looking at him, looking into his eyes, it was impossible to tell just from seeing the bright blue of his irises, that he was mostly blind. He couldn’t focus his eyes, not really, unless he wanted to exhaust himself, and Bob wondered if the color would eventually fade along with the rest of his vision.

“Ryan,” Spencer let go of his shirt and held out his hand. Without fail, Ryan took it and settled onto the floor with him, no less angry but much more willing to give into Spencer’s demands for quiet than Brendon’s.

“Those fuckers,” Ryan growled, squeezing Spencer’s hands, “They took your _eyes_ , Spencer. You can’t expect me to just _sit_ here!”

“I don’t,” Spencer shook his head, “But don’t be an idiot. Save your energy for when it’s useful.”  
“But,” Ryan breathed in, harsh and shallow, “Spencer, you can’t fucking _see_! Jon can’t hear anything unless you talk directly into his ear!”

“I can see just fine,” Spencer patted his hand and then laced their fingers together, “I just need some good glasses. Jon just needs a hearing aid. We’re fine.”  
“No,” Ryan snapped, “ _I’m_ fine! You guys...they fucking _took_ something from you! Look what they’ve done to Brian and Bob! How can they just _get away_ with this!?”

“Because they can,” Brian sighed, “They’re big and we’re small. Now calm down, before they start crying about your yelling. Catching their attention won’t do a fucking thing right now.”

“But,” Ryan started again, trailing off when he couldn’t add anything to the end that wouldn’t make him sound like a fucking motorbaby, “Damn it!”  
“It’s okay,” Dallon picked at his portion of their daily meal. There was still a little bread left, but Dallon had bruised his fingers during their last vision and pulling the desert bread apart was a little difficult. Brendon couldn’t taste his anymore, so he was usually the first one done. Brian had started making him drink water with the dry food so it wouldn’t scratch up his throat. “We’ll get out eventually.”  
“Or die.” Brent sniffed. He’d picked up a nose twitch, much to Spencer’s annoyance, and would sniff or twitch his nose every few seconds. “Either way.”  
“Either way,” Bob echoed, looking at his hands. Brian leaned his head on Bob’s shoulder and Bob closed his eyes, listened to The Kids bicker between themselves. He didn’t know where their energy came from, but it was rarely quiet anymore. He and Brian had perfected the art of the silent conversation long ago, but they hadn’t even bothered to try to pick it up. At first, it had bothered Bob. He was too used to silence, too used to conversations in his head or with the flick of eyebrows and a small quirk of lips. Now, though, it had become a soothing background noise. Proof that they were alive, all of them. Eight people in the cage had made it much smaller than when it had just been Bob, by himself, but it was his new comfortable.

Sometimes, Bob thought about killing all of them.

It wasn’t a nice thought, and he usually had it while he was in the midst of writhing in agony after a back room session, head in Brian’s lap and Spencer or Brendon gently massaging the cramps from his legs so he, at least, was free of that pain. He knew he could do it and that Ravenous wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Ravenous had a sick sense of humor and it had made it easier for him to really stay intact through all of the shit they went through, but Bob...Bob was having problems.

“What are you thinking about?” Brian asked him quietly one night, his whisper barely loud enough for Bob to hear despite how close they were. Bob could see Brian’s eyes in the dark - because they’d started turning the lights off at ‘night’ some time ago - reflecting the red of the emergency bathroom light. The Kids were sleeping, all curled up together like a pile of puppies, and Bob had checked on them before he and Brian had settled themselves, just to make sure they were all breathing after their latest visit to Doctor Adder.

“Killing all of us,” Bob admitted, closing his eyes. “Just ending it. No one gets left behind.”  
“How would you do it?” Brian pulled Bob’s hands to his lips and kissed them. Bob thought Brian was beautiful, in an odd way. He thought it often, usually in moments like this, when they were laying together and the light was illuminating the many spots on Brian’s head that were bare of hair and still angry with stitching and scars.

“I don’t know,” Bob admitted, “I’d probably start with The Kids, if they wanted me to. Spencer first, and then Ryan, because one of them without the other just isn’t...right. Then Brendon, Brent, Jon and Dallon, probably.”  
“You’d save me for last?”  
“I couldn’t kill you _first_ ,” Bob scoffed, like it was a completely valid thought, “It’d be hard enough killing them. I’d need to work up to it for you.”  
“You could let Ravenous do it,” Brian pointed out, “I don’t think he’d mind.”  
“No,” Bob shook his head, “He’d be pissed at me because he still thinks we’re gonna get out of here. He keeps talking about a great commander. He says he believes that his commander will come and rescue us, or something. But he wouldn’t fight me, I don’t think, not if I really wanted it.”  
“Do you? Really want it, Bob?” Brian used Bob’s hands to cover his face. Bob felt his eyelashes against the scarred skin of his hands. “I thought you wanted to live.”  
“I do,” Bob nodded, not sure which he was agreeing to. “Sometimes, I want to live. Sometimes, I even think I might be able to. But sometimes...sometimes, I think it would be better if we just died. What’s the point of being here, Brian? We’re just...living. There’s no end in sight and we’re just _experiments_. That’s all we are, now.”  
“That’s not all you are to me,” Brian protested, “That’s not all those kids are to me. I know that’s not all I am to you.”  
“No,” Bob agreed, moving so that their foreheads were resting against each other. Brian was hot, burning against Bob’s own forehead and Bob almost feared that Brian had a fever, until he remembered that Ravenous made Bob run cold. Sometimes, Bob could be as cold as ice and he wouldn’t even notice it until one of The Kids brushed against him and then jumped in shock. “No, that’s not all any of you are to me.”

They went quiet again, not sleeping, but quite ready to say anything else just yet, either.

“Sometimes, I think we’d all be better off dead, too.” Brian finally said, “But then I think about how...young we all are. Dallon isn’t even _twenty_ , and he’s the oldest of them. So much can happen. I don’t want to die if I have the chance to do more, you know?”  
“But what if there isn’t any _more_?” Bob asked, his hands trembling against Brian’s lips, “What if we just live the rest of our lives, day after fucking day of torture? What if they _take_ one of us? What if they take _you_?”

“What _if_ ,” Brian grinned against his hands and there was that fire, that ever burning flame in him that Bob _loved_ more than almost anything else in the whole world, “That’s always gonna be the question, Bob. I’m willing to hold out. Are you?”  
“I...I will, for you.” Bob agreed, “I will, if that’s what you want.”  
“So no killing us, okay? Even if we fucking beg for it.”  
“Any of you?”  
“Any of us. Including yourself. Got that?”  
“Yeah,” Bob agreed, closing his eyes. Now that the decision had been made for him, that he shouldn’t kill any of them, it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And he still thought about it after that, when he was in so much pain that he couldn’t even imagine going on and Brian was scuttling between the seven of them, all too weak to even twitch to help him. But only then, and that was an improvement.

 _He’s made you so soft,_ Ravenous laughed one day, when he was feeling particularly pissy because his ‘great commander’ hadn’t bothered to show up yet. He’d been cursing _Xibalba_ all day again, whoever the fuck that was, and Bob’s head felt ready to explode far before the point that Ravenous had turned his claws on Bob. _He makes you so fucking weak. They all do. Brian, those fucking kids, **Frank**. You’d do anything to just fucking keep them, stay with him. You live in **hell** every. Fucking. Day. I should just fucking kill you. That’s what they’re waiting for, you know. They want to see how long the two of us can last before I lose it and just fucking rip you all apart._

Bob didn’t have to think about it when he replied, _You won’t._

 _Won’t I?_ Ravenous snarled and Bob felt something grab his throat. He didn’t panic, other than the instinctual feeling of fear that something was around his throat. Brian and The Kids continued to move around him, as unaware as ever that Bob was having whole conversations with the thing in his head.

 _No,_ Bob shrugged, _If you wanted me dead, you’d of done it a long time ago. You’re just pissed off and blowing steam out on me._

 _You fucking **worm** , _Ravenous nearly shrieked, _You arrogant little **shit** ,_

 _It’s okay_ , Bob soothed, _I believe you, now._

_What?_

_It’s like this,_ Bob crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall fully, relaxed, _I’ve already promised Brian that I won’t kill myself, or any of the others. That means that I’m just stuck here, until Better Living kills me or you do. They won’t kill me, because they want you to. You won’t kill me because it’s been seven years and our relationship has been a lot worse than it is **now** and you haven’t yet. That means that we’re stuck here until something changes. Between believing that we’re going to be in this hole for the rest of our lives, or hoping that your **great commander** will come save us, I’d rather hope._

Ravenous didn’t say anything back, but he settled down and stopped being a dick for the rest of the day.

-

But the great commander was slow, and the eight of them, or nine if Ravenous chose to count, drifted through life with hollow existences. They liked to play pretend that they were normal and free, but the illusion was broken every day, twice a day, when Doctor Adder came to collect Bob or The Kids for her sick pleasures. It was hard on Brian, Bob knew, to have escaped the back room while the people he’d come to love were forced back there every day, but Bob had to admit that of everything that had happened in Linda Vista - Brian escaping at least that much of the experience was what he was grateful for.

It was at the end of that year, Bob’s seventh year and Brian’s third and The Kids’ first, that the boy with the golden eye was tossed into their lives.

“Boys!” Doctor Adder threw the door open and it sent Jon sprawling, scampering away as fast as he could to Brendon’s side. Brian stood up immediately, like he did every time one of the Better Living employees showed up. Bob thought it might have been an intimidation tactic, something Brian tried over and over again, in the hopes of it one day working.

“I have a surprise for you!” She sung, her voice sweet like bells, “Specifically you, Robert! Or, your AI, at least.”  
Bob frowned but he felt Ravenous perk up.

Doctor Adder moved aside and a Drac shoved into the room, dragging a boy who looked to be around Jon’s age behind him by his arm. The boy was covered in tears and blood, dirty faced and hair destroyed by dirt and garbage. The tear streaks on his cheeks didn’t match the grin on his face, and that grin terrified Bob to his core. He didn’t remember getting up or shoving The Kids and Brian as far from the door as he could, but Doctor Adder’s laughter made him come back to himself enough to realize that he’d done it. Brian gripped his shoulder, looking over Bob so he could get a good look at the boy, but Bob wouldn’t let any of them near him. Whoever the kid was, he was no friend.

 _It’s the great commander,_ Ravenous whispered and it echoed in Bob like it had never before. It rocked Bob from toes to hair, and Bob realized that the electric pull he was feeling, even as instinct told him to get himself and the others away, was coming from _Ravenous_ , that his AI was going _crazy_ with the need to fucking bow down to whoever this was.

Bob tested Frank’s face in his mind over the stranger’s and was beyond relieved that it didn’t match. More than it even meaning that Frank was still out there, somewhere, it meant that the fucking _chaos_ that came from the stranger wasn’t coming from _Frank_.

“Who…” Bob got out, only stopping to gulp when the kid turned his golden gaze to Bob.

“This is Project Suiteheart Subject zero-zero-three. Your project brother, if you will.”

The Drac shoved the kid into the room and he barely stumbled, practically fucking _floating_ across the floor.

“Get along, dears!”

She flounced out, slamming the door shut behind her, and locking Bob and his makeshift family in with a fucking monster.

“ _Commander,_ ” Bob breathed out, and then quickly realized that Ravenous was beginning to fight for control. Bob didn’t want to let up, didn’t trust this new feeling Ravenous was filling him with on its own with Brian and The Kids, but he knew he couldn’t fight Ravenous off. Not with the intensity Ravenous was shoving through him. He gave in, just a little bit, instead. They’d been practicing, lately, sharing a body. It hadn’t lasted long the last few times, but Bob figured it was better than battling it out inside their shared space, first.

“Ah, Ravenous,” The stranger somehow managed to make his grin _bigger,_ and it looked uncomfortable. Painful. “I’ve been waiting.”

“ _So have I_.” Ravenous moved their body away from the corner, away from Brian and The Kids, and Bob felt them kneel at the stranger's feet. The stranger laughed, and it sounded _psychotic_ , absolutely insane. He threaded his fingers through Bob’s - Ravenous’ - hair and tilted their head back so they were looking into his eyes. Golden. Bob had never seen golden eyes before, but these were pure _gold_ , and there was no other word or color that could describe them. His cheeks were rosy, like he’d just had a nice jog, even though the dirt and tears, and he had a collar around his neck that read identically to Bob’s own, except for the _003_ part.

“What have you been up to, Ravenous?”

“ _Waiting for you._ ” Ravenous answered honestly, “ _Would you like to see?_ ”

“Would I?” The stranger, the commander, purred out, and then he was using both hands to cup Bob’s face, pressing his thumbs to Bob’s eyes. He pushed, though not hard enough to seriously injure, or even pain, him. Instead, purple spots filled the blackness behind his eyes, and he felt something _intruding._ It knocked politely at his mind’s door and Bob could have tried to fight it, but it was useless. All he had were his memories of Linda Vista, and Frankie, so he opened up without a fight. He could hear, distantly, Brian and The Kids muttering between themselves, but it wasn’t important as long as they were safe. Instead, he relaxed into the stranger’s hands like Ravenous wanted, and let the stranger sort through his mind.

He didn’t understand how he could have ever feared the stranger. He was his commander, his _great commander_ , the one who always protected what was his, even above Xibalba’s orders, and he cared for Ravenous - and now, for Bob - with everything he had. He was a _good_ commander, a good leader, and Ravenous had waited for thousands and thousands of years to be with him again.

But then Bob could open his eyes again and the stranger was letting his face go, returning his hand to Bob’s hair without fanfare.

“So they’ve hurt you.” The stranger said thoughtfully, “Quite badly, I’d say.”  
“ _It was nothing_ ,” Ravenous shrugged their shoulders, “ _It was worth it all, to be at your feet once again, commander._ ”

“You flatter!” The stranger laughed, that grin back in place. His eyes were dangerous, though, sharp and prepared to _kill_. He was _bloodthirsty_. “But, still, it _was_ quite wrong of them, to try to break what is mine. They’ve disrespected me, you could say.”

“ _They have,_ ” Ravenous agreed, nodding their head.

“I’ll have to kill them.” The stranger shrugged, “Don’t worry any more, Ravenous. I’ll take care of this.”  
“ _Of course, commander,_ ” Ravenous agreed, and Bob felt the need to kill too, the desire to rip Doctor Adder apart with his bare hands and _bathe_ in her blood.

The stranger began to say something else, but he was interrupted by a big yawn, breaking through his words before they could be formed. When he finally stopped, he looked confused, almost irritated.  
“What was that, Ravenous?”  
“ _Your body,_ ” Ravenous leaned into his hand, “ _The body they’ve placed you in. It’s very young, Like mine was, when we were first joined. Your body will tire quickly, hunger for food and sleep. Of course, you could kill the other...being, which resided in the body before you, but I am unsure of what would happen if you did. It grows tiring to be in control of the body for too long._ ”

“And how do I...rest it, this body of mine?”

“ _Sleep, commander,_ ” Ravenous blinked his own eye and Bob felt Ravenous nudge him, “ _While you do so, the other one will awaken and I shall protect him. I and my own human. Bug, greet the great commander._ ”

“My name is Bob,” Bob grunted, rubbing at his eyes and pushing away from the ‘great commander’s’ hand. He only liked Brian touching his head and only Ravenous’ control over him had allowed the touch for so long.

“You are insolent!” The stranger laughed, and it sounded almost as dangerous as his eyes had looked, “I don’t know if I like that.”  
“Then kill me.” Bob snapped back, “I don’t care.”  
“Bob!” Brian snapped at him, “Now is not the time for challenges.”

“You are _Brian_ ,” The stranger crossed his arms, “Smart. You’ll do well to make sure this one minds his tongue.”  
He lashed his foot out and Bob went flying. Years ago, when Bob was younger, he could have taken that kick and a lot more before he stayed down. But now, in this time, Bob usually had just enough energy to stand up and talk if he needed to, but any type of force on his body had him out for the count for at least ten minutes. Brian was at his side immediately, helping him sit up and checking him over.

“You’re so fucking _stupid_ , sometimes,” Brian knocked his head against Bob’s gently, “He’s obviously fucking dangerous, Bob, why the fuck are you _arguing_ with him?”  
“My intense dislike of authority,” Bob grunted, letting Ryan support him.

 _You’re a fucking idiot!_ Ravenous snapped at him, loud enough to send Bob’s head reeling, _You’re going to make the great commander **angry** and there is nothing I can do to help you, then! Apologize, now!_

 _Apologize?_ Bob scoffed.

Ravenous growled with enough warning that it quelled Bob’s irritation.

“Sorry for disrespecting you,” Bob said stiffly, glaring at the ground before the stranger’s feet.

“Your apology is accepted,” The stranger laughed again, moving to settle onto the bed, “This is where I...sleep. Correct?”  
“Yeah,” Brian nodded, “That’s the bed.”  
“Wonderful. I trust the lot of you to protect my...body, while I _rest_.”  
“Yeah,” Bob huffed, “We’ll protect you.”

And Bob didn’t like it, but Ravenous had always done his best to protect Brian, to protect The Kids, and he’d taken more than enough for Bob. In return, Bob would look out for this...commander, like Ravenous had asked. He could feel Ravenous growing tired as well, one of the byproducts of sharing their body, so Bob knew it’d be up to him to make sure the stranger’s body - whatever poor sap he’d been placed into - stayed safe until the commander had reawakened.

The stranger, still grinning, laid down on one of the beds, rested his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. Almost immediately, they snapped back open and the suddenness of the action made Ryan jump against Bob’s back.

“What?” The stranger set up and Bob knew that it wasn’t the commander, not anymore. For one thing, his face had relaxed into a look of absolute terror, looking around wildly and already near tears again. “Where am I? What happened?”  
Bob heaved himself up with Ryan’s help and brushed himself off, a habit he’d never broken despite never having anything he needed to brush off after he’d fallen.

“You’re in Linda Vista.” He answered him, hesitating before he continued, “You’ve been taken by Better Living. You’re part of Project Suiteheart, now.”  
“Project...what? What?”  
“It’s...I dunno. They put something in your brain. You’ll figure it out,” Bob glanced over at Brian, who gave him an unamused look.

“My name’s...Bob.” He finally introduced himself, because it looked like explaining what new nightmare the kid was living wasn’t going to calm him down, “Who are you?”  
“Me?” The kid bit his lip and looked around again, “My name’s Patrick.”

-

Benzedrine, as the commander had come to name himself, was an all-powerful AI trapped inside the body of a seventeen year old, and it shouldn’t have amused Bob to watch him try to keep constant control, only to crash for hours and hours at a time, but it kind of did.

It did not amuse Ravenous, but Ravenous had been prickly since Bob had been a dick to Benzedrine, so Bob didn’t try to curb his amusement for Ravenous’ sake.

Ravenous had always had a firm grip on his bloodlust and so Bob had ignored it for the years that they’d been together, letting it spur him only when he needed it to just get through _one more day_. It was much more difficult, now, even only a few hours under Benzedrine’s influences - Ravenous felt the increasingly stronger urge to go off the chain with Benzedrine egging him on, promising blood and revenge, freedom - for Bob to not fall into that trap. It was difficult for Patrick too, who - until he’d found Benzedrine in his head - had never had to struggle with a darkness like that. He went into panicking attacks at the sight of blood, as they had discovered when he saw the still bleeding wound on Brent’s neck, and he was constantly on edge, like he was going to run at any opportunity offered to him - a good one or not.

Patrick set off a familiar feeling in Bob, the kind of warm feeling he got around The Kids, the need to protect them, and keep them safe. None of them were Frankie, they weren’t why he’d thrown his whole life to Better Living, but they were all close enough in age, similar enough in some aspect or another that they made him feel some of the same things.

Except Patrick was like Frank _and_ like Bob, both. He knew the darkness like Bob did, now, and he and Benzedrine, for all that Benzedrine was fucking crazy, could understand Bob and Ravenous in a way that not even Brian could.

Patrick was small, short and scared, just like Frank had been, and Ravenous had a need to protect Benzedrine’s vessel that was so strong it left Bob breathless sometimes. There was something about Patrick, like there’d been about Frank, that made Bob feel like something was _special_ about him. Bob didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he wanted to keep him safe, protect him. He and Ravenous had never been more in tandem, and it made Bob question himself, because if his instincts and _Ravenous_ ’ instincts - this new Ravenous, one Bob didn’t recognize - were running the same way, then something was probably wrong. But Bob didn’t fight it, couldn’t bring himself to.

“Benzedrine says,” He spoke up for the first time since he’d introduced himself, when The Kids were mostly asleep and even Brian was drifting, “That I should trust you. That’ you’ll protect me.”  
“I will,” Bob agreed. “For Ravenous, and because...something about you tells me you’re important.”  
“Important?” Patrick narrowed his eyes, “You’re not the first person to tell me that, you know.”  
“So it must be true,” Bob shrugged, “Don’t question it. Your instincts are never wrong.”

“Now that, I’d question,” Patrick cracked a smile, just for a second, “I guess...I don’t understand. But Benzedrine has his best interests at heart, and in this case, that means for me, too. And I trust you.”  
“That’s a bad idea, trust. But I’ll protect you, so don’t worry about it. They won’t get you.” Bob agreed. That was the end of the conversation, but it still had Bob’s mind ticking. Patrick was young, like The Kids, and scared _all the time_. He even jumped when Brian brushed too close, sometimes, and Brian had been the one most friendly of the lot of them. Bob was hulking, Bob was intimidating. Maybe that’s why Patrick thought Bob could, would, protect him, even without Benzedrine’s advice.

Bob slept, still thinking about it, until he thought no more.

Patrick went back to not speaking at all the next day. Bob thought it might have been nerves, too scared to try talking to anyone, but he still managed to charm The Kids enough that Brendon and Spencer took to him pretty fast. Benzedrine was still _resting_ , and Bob wasn’t too worried about _Patrick_ causing any problems, especially under Brian’s watchful eye, so he took the chance to relax against the far wall and let Jon and Dallon find entertainment with his hands.

They spent the day like that, the usual times that Doctor Adder came for their respective pickups passing by without a knock on the door to announce her _illustrious_ presence. Bob was half convinced they’d go the whole day without seeing her by the time Patrick spoke up again.

“Oh no,” He perked up from where he’d been ducked against the wall, between Brendon and Spencer playing some sort of hand clapping game to pass the boredom. “They’re coming.”  
“What?” Brian looked up from where he’d been inspecting one of Dallon’s nails. He’d ripped it off in his upper arm the day before and Brian had used a piece of his shirt to wrap it, “Patrick?”  
“That lady is coming!” Patrick yelped, his voice going high in panic, “She’s coming for me!”  
“Shit,” Ryan set up from the bed, “How do you know?”

“I can hear her,” Patrick stood up, already beginning to breathe unevenly, “Benzedrine can hear her, what do I do, what,”

He paused, like Benzedrine was talking to him, and Bob had to wonder if that was what he looked like too, when he and Ravenous spoke. Bob liked to think that he could continue to do things while they talked, that it came with time and practice, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he sometimes froze mid action to have a conversation in his head. The way Benzedrine and Patrick interacted made Bob think a lot about how he and Ravenous interacted. Patrick’s voice was different when it was _him_ talking and not Benzedrine. It was softer, less confrontational, and more willing to bend. But there was still a steel behind it that made sure people knew that he was used to being listened to. Bob had never noticed a difference between his voice and Ravenous’, but next time Ravenous spoke through him, Bob would listen a little closer to see if he could spot it.

 _We have to protect him_ , Ravenous broke into Bob’s thoughts. It was the first thing he’d said to Bob since the day before, though Bob wasn’t in the mood to argue with him, _She can’t take him. The commander is still resting. He is not strong enough to defend himself yet._

 _Okay,_ Bob agreed, _We will. Like that time._

 _Worse than that,_ Ravenous promised.

When Bob blinked back into time, Patrick was looking at him. There was all the fear in Patrick’s eyes that there had been in The Kids, in Brian’s, in Frank’s. Bob had failed them all, in some way or another, but he _couldn’t_ fail Patrick. Ravenous was on his side, completely this time, no hesitation or sarcasm.

“Get in the corner,” Bob ordered, “This is gonna get ugly.”

The Kids and Brian obeyed without question, and Jon dragged Patrick along to tuck him between the lot of them. Bob didn’t know how, exactly, he was going to keep them safe, but he knew he was going to do _something_ that wasn’t going to turn out okay for any of the people who walked through that door.

_Let me out_

_Last time I let you out…_

_Like that time,_ Ravenous repeated Bob’s words, _Remember?_

Bob hesitated, looking over his shoulder. _You can’t hurt them. You lost fucking control last time._

 _I swear_ , Ravenous promised, practically foaming to be let out, _I swear, they won’t touch a hair on any of them._

Bob nodded and felt the tips of his fingers begin to numb. _You swore, Ravenous._

 _I swear,_ Ravenous repeated, sounding far, far too excited for Bob to trust. He wanted to fight, though, and he wanted to win, so he lost himself in Ravenous, and let go.

-

He came back...later. He opened his eyes before he actually felt anything and for a long moment, he thought that he was just floating in white. When feeling eventually returned though, he realized that he was laying on someone’s lap - probably Brian’s - and that every piece of him ached.

“Bob?” He heard Brent’s voice, small and scared, and finally everything fell back into place. He set up slowly, shaking his head.

“What…”

“Bob!” He heard Dallon shout, and then he had six Kids on him, hugging him hard enough to hurt his delicate bones and crying. He’d never seen Spencer cry before, outside of when he was coming back from the back room, but there he and Ryan were, sniveling into his shoulder and collarbone.

“Um,” Bob wrapped his arms around them and looked around, taking the room in. The last time he’d let Ravenous lose control, their cage had been trashed, but it had _nothing_ on the damage he’d caused this time around. There were _holes_ in the walls, the door creased and bent in its frame and glass from the light above shattered along the ground. He’d ripped one of the beds apart, the mattress on the other side of the room and the frame bent and folded in on itself and embedded in the walls on either side of the door, creating a barrier. A puddle of blood settled on the floor in front of the door, a thin film on top of speaking of its age.

“They shot you,” Patrick spoke up from the corner, shaky, “They shot you _so much_ , Bob.”

“They just kept going,” Brendon got out, sniffing hard, “But you wouldn’t go _down_ , man. You - you attacked Doctor Adder. You _hurt her_ , Bob.”

“Not even the gas would take you out,” Spencer agreed. His eyes had finally begun to haze, the bright blue dulling more and more every day. They were bright now, though, with tears.

“We-We were so scared you wouldn’t wake up,” Jon nodded, “That you -”

“That there was too much tranq in your blood,” Brent finished for him, “They shot you _so much_ ,”

“Brian?” Bob hesitated, looking over his shoulder, “Are you -”

He cut off when Brian pressed his head to the back of Bob’s neck. Hot, wet tears rolled from Brian’s eyes to Bob’s skin, and it was answer enough.

“Are you, okay, Patrick?” Bob finally asked, just letting Brian have his moment. The Kids all pulled away after a few more seconds of...enjoying his status as a living creature, and he could get a clear look at Patrick. He seemed fine, unharmed, if a little shaken up.

“Fine.” Patrick agreed, “Benzedrine said you did a good job.”  
“Thanks,” Bob snorted, waiting until Brian finally pulled his face away so Bob could roll his stiff shoulders. Ravenous was out for the count, and would be for a while. He’d used way too much energy, and Bob was going to be beyond pissed that Ravenous had hurt Doctor Adder. They would pay dearly for that.

“I’ll get you out of here,” Patrick promised, taking Bob’s hand, “You, um, you’re going through a lot to keep me safe. And I don’t think I understand why, not really. But...I really don’t want to go back to that doctor.”

“I thought we already had this conversation. You’re important,” Bob shrugged, “That’s all I really understand. Ravenous is really insistent on that. So I’ll protect you.”  
“Thanks,” Patrick blushed a little, “When we get out of here, you guys don’t have to worry about anything, okay? I’m going to take you all back to the base with me.”

Bob didn’t quite know what to say to that. On one hand, it absolutely sucked that Patrick was still naive enough to think that someone was actually coming to rescue him. On the other hand, it was nice that he wanted to take them with him.

“Yeah,” Bob scoffed, but it came out a little more fond than usual, “Thanks, kid.”

-

Benzedrine was still resting when they pulled Bob a few hours later. He was too tired to fight back, and they sedated Brian before he could even try to fight them for Bob.

As soon as he’d been dragged into the hallway, he was strapped down to a table and wheeled the rest of the way to the back room. It was just as white as the last time he’d been there, but a new set of tools had been laid out.

Doctor Death Adder was waiting for him, her arm in a sling and a smile that was just a little bit forced on her lips.

“Robert, darling!” She tittered, “So nice of you to join me. I had hoped to see Patrick and his partner earlier, but, well, that didn’t turn out quite like I’d hoped it would. I don’t mind making up the time with you, though. You’re my favorite, but don’t tell the others.”

Bob didn’t bother responding past a grunt. This was going to hurt either way, and Ravenous was too _tuckered out_ to be there with him for quite a while. He didn’t want to degrade himself by playing along with her games. Not yet, at least. He knew that by the end of this, he’d be eating out of her hand if it would make the pain stop.

“That’s not what we _say_ , dear,” She admonished lightly. The _thing_ she stabbed into his thigh was nothing even close to _light_ , though, and Bob wheezed in shocked pain, jerking up so hard that the straps squealed before they pushed him back down. She didn’t bother removing whatever it was, and he couldn’t see it - didn’t want to look at it, even if he could.

“Try again. What do we say when people are _kind_ to us?”

She removed the sharp _thing_ with a single, hard tug and he grunted out a high “ _Thank you_!”

“You’re welcome,” She smiled, patting his cheek. “But you and I both know that a simple ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ will not make up for what happened earlier today.”  
“It wasn’t me,” Bob tried to deflect. Anything they did to Ravenous would hurt him anyway, but Ravenous wasn’t _here_ right now to take the flack for his temper tantrum, and Bob didn’t want the blame solely on him if Ravenous wasn’t even going to offer fucking _moral support_.

“Oh, I know, dear.” She pet him and Bob pushed into it, tried to appeal to her in a more physical manner. Sometimes, if he was lucky, she’d be a little more gentle, when he was good. Bob could be good. He wouldn’t be ashamed to be good, not if he could avoid the _pain_ he knew she wanted to cause.

“None of that!” She laughed, pushing his head back to the table lightly, all teasing touches, “You aren’t getting out of this one, darling. Not even with that kind of behavior!”

Bob closed his eyes and took a fortifying breath. So he wouldn’t be getting out of this. If he just accepted that, maybe it would be easier to take.

She gentled her fingertips across his forehead and something a lot longer than the thing before found its way into his other thigh.

No, no, it really hadn’t.

Somewhere between being cut open from naval to rib cage, and then sewn back up, Bob realized that she was going to push him to the very end of his rope. She was going to take him to the brink of death before she let back up, if she let back up at all, and he would be going through it all, alone.

Ravenous wasn’t answering, no matter how loudly Bob screamed - and _how_ he screamed - and that was maybe the worst part of it all, other than the excruciating pain, pain like he’d never felt before. Not having Ravenous there when Bob needed him, not having Ravenous there after Bob had opened himself up to this, let Ravenous out even knowing, somewhere inside, that this would be his punishment. He’d always had Ravenous with him. They’d grown together, from the first time Bob had been taken apart so they could literally see what made him tick to just before now, when they were taking him apart in just the way that meant that he could _still_ tick. And it _hurt_ , in a part of Bob that Doctor Death Adder had never reached. He hadn’t realized that his faith in Ravenous had been so absolute, since that moment that Ravenous had said that they couldn’t be parted, that they’d never be apart again, until it’d been broken. And it _was_ broken. Because Bob couldn’t handle this by himself, didn’t think he’d ever be able to handle anything again, and Ravenous was nowhere to be found. Maybe, in the end, it hadn’t been the crazed blood thirst that had made Bob hate Benzedrine on sight. Maybe it had been that Benzedrine had made Ravenous _different_ , strange to Bob. Strange to _Bob_ , who had shared a fucking _body_ with Ravenous for _seven years_.

But Ravenous wasn’t _there_ to hear Bob’s screams, to help Bob through the pain of Doctor Death Adder performing and reperforming her favorite operations on him to make up for not performing them on Patrick and Benzedrine, and it was between being forced to watch her hand disappear into his insides and come back out with some sort of pink, slippery _thing_ in her palm that he understood that she wasn’t just trying to break him physically. That she wasn’t just going to punish him, but she was going to _break_ what he and Ravenous had built. She’d known Ravenous wouldn’t be here or this, wouldn’t have had time to rest after such a long stretch of control, and she’d used it to her advantage. Bob didn’t want to fall for it, didn’t want to let her win, but he couldn’t help but feel _betrayed_ , feel like he’d been _abandoned_ by Ravenous.

She must have seen the expression on his face when he finally connected the dots, because she _laughed_ and replaced whatever she’d moved around with a gentle touch. He wasn’t sure just how he was _surviving_ this, some sort of healing on Ravenous’ part, or if the human body could just take a lot more than he had previously thought, but he didn’t want to think about it. If he’d had anything in his stomach, he’s sure he would have barfed it up by now. She’d handed his actual stomach enough that he would have gotten motion sickness.

“Oh, Robert,” She sighed, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Bob tried to turn his head away, but his tears and the blood that had leaked from one of the head wounds she’d given him had made the table too sticky, dried his hair in place, and he couldn’t. “You try so hard, Robert. I know you do. You’re so good for me when we’re all alone in this room. It’s when you’re with others, that’s when you misbehave. I know it would be best to just separate you, but I do so love the look on Brian’s face when I return you to him. It’s just...delightful. All that pain. _Oh_ , the _misery_ in his eyes. I love it. And those precious boys of yours. I wish you’d let go of that last memory, speaking of boys. I want to _consume_ it, Bob. I want to take that last piece of you and make it mine, so that who you are now can be completely new. I want to have created you, Bob. You’re my _greatest_ success, no matter what the Executives say. Who else could possibly take someone as strong and _giving_ as you, and just...take it all away. Just give it up, Bob. Give that last little string up, and you’ll be _mine._ Mine, completely, and all of this pain can stop. I’ll _forgive_ you, darling, if only for that one, little, memory.”

“No,” Bob bit out, using too much energy just to get that out. He _wouldn’t_ give Frank up. Not for anything. Not even to make this stop.

“Oh, _Robert_ ,” She repeated, sounding far less friendly. She began to sew him up, a new scar to be traced for hours and hours. Cut open on a later date to watch how Ravenous reacted. “That wasn’t the right answer, dear.”

He tried to stay still, because he didn’t want to fuck up the stitching of all things, but the needle was fucking _coated_  in something, and it stung _so badly_. He felt like his skin was disintegrating under it, even as he was being stitched back together.

It lasted for hours. Hours and hours at her hands, longer than he’d ever withstanded, even with Ravenous, and never did Ravenous make a sound.

In the end, he thought it only ended because she had other engagements. She hadn’t wanted to stop until she’d finally taken his last memory, the last thing he had of his old life, before Linda Vista and Doctor Death Adder, but she had a job to do and a boss that wasn’t the type to piss off, so she fixed him up with loving fingers that made the skin she hadn’t sliced to bits crawl, and wheeled him on his way.

The Dracs that took him back to the cage weren’t gentle. Bob hadn’t expected them to be, but it still... _hurt_ , wasn’t even a deep enough word. _Pain_ had stopped being an adequate description a long time ago, and _agony_ came close, but missed the mark by just a little.

They didn’t roll him off the rolling bed, but only because Doctor Adder had given them strict instructions to place him on the mattress as gently as they could. She didn’t want any of her stitching to break, not if she wasn’t there to stop it before he bled out.

Bob hadn’t blacked out once, not once, since he was taken. There was something in his blood, possibly adrenaline, that he wasn’t looking forward to seeing wear off anytime soon.

He hadn’t blacked out, but by the time Brian had fallen to his side, gentling his scarred fingers along Bob’s skin and pushing any of the others away when they tried to get closer, he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.

 ** _Don’t_** , Bob snarled, _Don’t even **speak** to me right now._

 _Bug,_ Ravenous began, anyway, and that might have been what made Bob crack. He imagined a door in his head. Not just any door, but a door similar to - identical to - the one that blocked their cage from the outside world, and he slammed it shut as hard as he could. Immediately, Ravenous disappeared. Bob couldn’t feel him anywhere around him, alone in half of their shared space, sandy instead of black, with a weathered, gray seed half buried in the sand..

Whatever unconscious support Ravenous had given him was taken away and Bob reeled, almost gagging with the pain. Instead of trying to take anything else in, Bob just curled into Brian, tear tracks on his scarred cheeks, just like on Bob’s, and cried as quietly as he could into Brian’s neck.

The next thing he did remember clearly was Benzedrine’s golden eyes, staring down at him. There was an unfamiliar hand on his head, in his hair, but Bob didn’t even try to fight it.

“They hurt you. For protecting me.”  
“Yes,” Brian said for him, “For protecting Patrick.”  
“My body,” Benzedrine agreed. “Protecting me, that made you mine. Ravenous is _mine_ , and this doctor doesn’t seem to grasp that.”  
“Leave him alone,” Brian snapped, “This isn’t a fucking contest to see who _owns_ Bob’s body! He’s _hurt_ , Benzedrine! He barely even understands you right now!”  
“He’s locked Ravenous from their mind space,” Benzedrine hummed, his eyes still on Bob, “If he let him back in, Ravenous could begin healing him a lot faster. He could sleep, instead of suffering through this. And you will suffer, Bob. Far more than you are now, with that concoction in your blood. I can smell it from here, but you’ve not got much time with it left.”

“Bob?” Brian asked softly, his voice cracking, “Bob, did you understand that?”

Bob made a soft, humming noise.

“Good,” Brian nodded, “Hum once for yes, two for no. You remember. You understand Benzedrine?”  
Bob hummed, slow and soft.

“Good,” Brian laughed, just a little, “Let Ravenous in, Bob.”  
Two hums.

“Bob,” Brian pleaded, “I know you’re probably pissed right now, and I know you’re in a lot of pain, but you need to let him in. Be pissed later, okay? When you can breathe.”  
Bob didn’t _want_ to, though. Bob was _angry_ , Bob was _hurting_ , and Bob was _betrayed_.

Bob felt like he was on the verge of passing out and never waking up again.

“Bob, _please_ ,” Brian begged. His voice cracked again and Bob realized that Brian was crying. Wet drops fell onto Bob’s cheeks, joining the tracks his own had left, and Bob didn’t want to make Brian cry, not ever. “ _Please_ , do this for me. I can’t lose you, Bob, I can’t. _Please_.”

And Bob didn’t _want_ to, because he’d taken the torture and he’d taken the fall for Ravenous. He’d done it without Ravenous and he wanted to prove to Ravenous that he didn’t need him, not like he’d thought he had. Everything that he’d thought they’d built up, it had all been a lie. Ravenous was a monster, just like they’d said he was, and Bob had been a fucking idiot to believe otherwise. Benzedrine, Ravenous, they were the same. A _friendship_ , one like Bob had thought he’d share with the _thing_ inside of him, wasn’t even in the cards anymore - as if Ravenous had ever even wanted something like that from Bob. But Brian was crying. Brian was begging Bob to let Ravenous in, and Brian was scared for Bob. Bob had never wanted to cause Brian that kind of pain. He’d never wanted to make Brian fear for Bob’s life on purpose. So he opened the door, welcomed the sweet rush of relief, of unconsciousness.

-

“His name is Sandman,” Patrick was saying, one of the next times that Bob woke up. “He’s like Ravenous, like Benzedrine. I mean, that’s what he is to Pete. To me, the two of them are...like my guardian angel. They’ve protected me since I was young.”  
“So that’s why you think they’ll be here?”  
“Yeah,” Patrick shrugged, blushing, “I mean. Sandman would know if I were dead, anyway. And you said we were in Linda Vista. That means we’re still in the city. No one can hide someone from the Young Bloods in this city, not if they wanted them to stay hidden. They probably think this place is secure since the Young Bloods broke in years before now and security was revamped, but it isn’t. Not if it’s between Sandman and what he wants.”  
“And he wants you.” Brendon sighed, sounding awestruck, “That’s so romantic.”  
“You’re fucking cheese,” Ryan scoffed, “How can you be so sure, huh? You’ve been here for a week, already.”  
“I said, they’d be here. Not that they’re magic. They still have to make a plan of attack. And Pete’s all the way in the desert. Even if he got the emergency message, he’d only just be getting home a day ago, maybe. I can’t just expect them to drop everything to rescue me.”

“Why not?” Spencer frowned, “If they know what goes on in here, why wouldn’t they want you out as fast as possible.”  
“I’m sure they _want_ me out,” Patrick smiled a little, “But what’s good for the whole is more important than what’s good for the one. They’ll come for me, eventually, but they have to protect the compound, first.”

“The compound, first,” Brent sniffed, his nose twitch acting up, “Ridiculous. Look at Bob, he can’t protect any of us much longer. They’re going to kill him at this rate.”  
“She’s coming back for him today,” Jon said softly, “They never give us more than three days to recover.”

“He’s not even kind of recovered, yet!” Patrick gasped out, “They’ll kill him!”  
“Until he gives up that last memory,” Brian said gently, his voice tired, “They won’t leave him alone.”

He curled up along Bob’s side, gently rubbing one of the less tender spots on his wrist. It felt nice, and Bob just breathed and listened to them talk. Ravenous hadn’t spoken to him, but he was doing his job and it felt like Bob was comfortably numb, barely able to feel anything. Bob didn’t know how Ravenous was doing it, but it was probably a give and take type of thing. Ravenous was giving Bob his peace and taking Bob’s pain.

“His last memory?” Patrick asked, sounding confused, “What do you mean?”  
“They take memories, here.” Brendon explained, “Brian and the rest of us don’t remember anything before we came to Linda Vista.”  
“I remember a little,” Dallon offered, “Mainly because I’m the oldest. I have more to lose.”  
“We were only twelve when we came here,” Brent said simply, like it wasn’t a big deal. Now, it wasn’t. “So we lost it all pretty quickly. But Bob’s too strong for them. He’s got this memory, of someone really important to him. Someone he gave himself up to protect, and Doctor Adder wants it, but Bob just won’t give.”  
“It’s what the charm he always holds onto is,” Ryan agreed, “The person gave it to him, before they were separated. They’re why Bob’s here, but he wouldn’t give them up to save his life, even now.”

“Wow,” Patrick hesitated, looking at Bob. Bob met his eyes, his own vision hazy, “Is that true?”

“Frank,” Bob agreed, clasping the charm tighter in his palm. He’d woken up days earlier with it wrapped around his fist, courtesy of Brian, and he hadn’t let it go since.

Patrick processed that, sitting on the bed next to Bob and touching his wrist lightly.

“Don’t worry,” Patrick bit his lip, “They won’t take you again. I won’t let them.”  
“Don’t,” Bob started, only to give up halfway through so he could cough and hack until one of the Kids brought water from the shower over. He swallowed it with Brian’s help and tried again, “Don’t get yourself in trouble.”  
“Don’t worry,” Patrick repeated, looking more determined, “Benzedrine and I will take care of it. Besides, if they take memories, it’s even more important that they can’t have us. I know too much about Pete, about the Young Bloods to let them have me, ”  
Brian set up, careful not to jostle Bob, “Patrick...Once you go down that road, you don’t come back. You know that right? Benzedrine won’t stop.”

“They did this to him,” Patrick looked Bob over, and Bob knew what he looked like. Covered in new scars, stitches and bruises too dark to even imagine healing. “They did this to him because he protected me. This always happens when I’m involved. People _die_ protecting _me._ Not anymore. I won’t let them do this again. I can stop it, now.”  
“Patrick,” Bob tried to argue, but Patrick shook his head.  
“Sleep, Bob. Rest and get better. I need you in tip top shape, when we get out of here.”

Brian laughed, just a little, and Bob closed his eyes and gave up. He couldn’t make Patrick do anything, even _not_ fight.

“Don’t stress it.” Brian pressed his lips to Bob’s forehead and Bob practically leached the warmth from his skin, bringing it to his own, “I’ll watch out for them. Just rest, Bob.”

“Rest,” Bob scoffed, “No rest for the wicked.”  
“Then I guess you aren’t all that wicked. _Sleep._ ”

And Bob did.

-

Bob woke up to blood. For the first time in a while, it wasn’t his own or that of someone he cared about.

Instead, it was of two Dracs, both lying at odd angles on the floor. Blood was still leaking from the both of them and, for just a moment, Bob was unsure of where the blood was coming from, until he looked up at Patrick - no, Benzedrine, and saw fucking _hearts_ in his hands.

Benzedrine had ripped the fucking _hearts_ out of their chests with his _bare hands_.

Doctor Adder stood in the doorway, gaping, at the sight before her, much like Bob and Brian.

“This ends, now.” Benzedrine said simply, dropping the hearts like pieces of trash he’d accidentally picked up, and licking his fingers, “There’s a new head bitch, _dear_ , and it sadly isn’t you.”

“You,” She started, taking a step back, “You…”  
“ _You_ ,” Benzedrine laughed, “Made a mistake. You never should have released me, _Doctor Death Adder_. Not without the proper authority at your side.”  
“Xibalba,” She breathed, “The Executives,”  
“I don’t give a _fuck_ ,” He snarled, “Who gave you the go ahead. When I get out of this room, and I will, I’m going to _find you_ , and I’m going to eat your organs while you _watch_.”

She slammed the door shut behind her when she ran out, and Bob had the feeling she wouldn’t be back for a long, long time. Benzedrine allowed a single Drac back into the room, just long enough for him to drag the bodies out, red blood trails marking their passage across the threshold, and then they were all alone again.

Patrick cried, when he woke up. The Kids comforted him while Brian and Bob slept, exhausted, in the bed. Safe, for now.

The usual time where food appeared passed without said food appearing, but no one really expected it to. After a display like that, no one could stomach anything, anyway, and Patrick was too busy throwing up the taste of dead blood from his mouth to even think of eating.

The second day without food made Bob realize that there was going to be a problem.

“They’re going to starve us out.” He whispered his fears into Brian’s shoulder, that night. It was their second without food, and the water from the shower head had begun to get stale. If Bob had to guess, he’d say that there was a limited amount of water and it was just being repeatedly recycled every time they turned the shower head on to drink from it. It would run out eventually, and then they’d be really fucked.

Bob was fine, even without food or much water, mostly thanks to Ravenous, and so was Patrick. But The Kids, especially Dallon, had an immediate problem due to their still healing injuries and their fast fucking metabolisms. They were still growing, for all that they’d been stunted in Linda Vista, and even two days without their usual portion of bread was enough to have them laid out. Brian had handled it a little better, but his stomach still growled between them.

“Probably,” Brian admitted. He stroked along Bob’s side, soothing his trembling muscles, “But it’s okay. Maybe it’s time.”  
“Yeah?” Bob asked, thoughtfully, leaning his head against Brian’s, “You think?”  
“Maybe,” Brian sighed, “I wanted to feel the sun. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt it before.”  
“Me, too.” Bob nodded, “I wanted to live.”

“Me, too.” Brian laughed just a little, “If it makes up for anything, I’m glad I might die with you.”  
“Yeah,” Bob smiled, closing his eyes again, “It does.”

They slept after that. Bob was getting to the point where ‘resting’ didn’t mean ‘mostly sleeping’, but he was still a far cry from healthy and - while it didn’t _hurt_ him to not have it, the lack of food wasn’t a help either.

Still, when an alarm went up early on the third day, Bob was strong enough to sit up at the sound of it. Brian gripped his hand and Bob squeezed back, unsure of what to do. They’d all been warned about the alarm, about how they should dread it more than anything else they’d ever hear. An alarm meant that there was a breach. A breach meant termination - for every experiment, success or not.

“I guess it really is time,” Brian laughed, a little hysterically. Bob wondered what it must have felt like, to have held onto the belief that they’d make it out for so long, only to have it all taken away from him with a loud, blaring alarm.

“We all know what that means,” Brent spoke up, trying to sound brave.

“What?” Patrick asked, looking away from the ceiling to stare at Brent, “What does it mean?”  
“It means there’s a breach.” Jon stood up, helping Brendon and Brent get to their feet. Dallon was already standing, Spencer leaning on him while Ryan hid his face in Spencer’s shoulder. “And a breach means they’re going to terminate us.”  
“Terminate…?” Patrick asked, like he wasn’t sure what it meant.

“They’re going to release gas into the vents, and kill us.” Spencer explained, bringing an arm out to feel around a little before he started walking. He was mostly blind by now, barely able to see anything through the thick film that had begun to grow over his eyes. “Take me to the bed. If we’re going to die, I’m going to do it laying down.”  
Ryan sobbed out a laugh, weak but there. The Kids made their way to the bed and Bob moved, let Brian help him up so that they could all find a small bit of space on the two mattresses. It wasn’t enough for any of them to be comfortable, but Bob would rather be curled into Brian’s chest with the six of them surrounding him, uncomfortable, then get all of the mattress to himself.

“Are you just...just going to give up?” Patrick gaped at them, “Just like that?”  
“There’s nothing we can do,” Brian broke it to him, gently, “We’ve survived a long time, Patrick. We’ve been through...too much. We can’t stop the gas, it just isn’t possible. Now, I’m going to die in the bed, with the people I love, instead of while clawing at the walls like the animal they like to treat me as. That’s my choice.”  
“Mine, too.” Brendon agreed, yawning. “I don’t want to die, but at this point, it couldn’t be much different from living.”  
“To die would be an awfully big adventure,” Ryan quoted, much to Bob’s amusement.

“You would pick some obscure quote as your last words,” Spencer laughed, sounding too cheerful for the situation, “I can’t even believe you.”  
Ryan stuck his nose in the air, but he still smiled.

“Wherever we end up, there better be food.” Jon mumbled, leaning against Bob’s legs.

“Whole tables of it,” Dallon fantasized, “Filled to the roof with the best foods heaven or hell could find.”  
“There’s no way we could eat that,” Brent sniffed, “Not in a million years...but it would be nice to try. And if not, we could always topple the food and crush our enemies with it.”

“See?” Brian laughed, “Even a pessimist like Brent can see the good in food piled that high.”

“I prefer realist,” Bob said, before Brent could, just to watch his face scrunch up.

“Come on, Patrick.” Brian patted the spot next to he and Bob, “You can sit with us, if you’d like. Plenty of room.”

“But...But I don’t want to die,” Patrick said weakly, looking totally defeated, “I don’t want to die.”

Bob imagined that it would be hard, to go from being free in the city, to spending a week in a place like Linda Vista always believing that you’d come out alright in the end, only to have accept your inevitable death, surrounding by seemingly uncaring cellmates.  
“None of us want to die,” Bob snorted, “But, we don’t always get what we want. If I have to die, I’ll take it here, with these guys.”

Patrick wiped at his eyes and took the spot.

“Thank you for protecting me. I’m sorry I couldn’t take you to the base with me.”  
“It’s fine,” Brian promised, “We appreciated the offer more than the outcome, anyway.”

Patrick giggled, just a little, and it made Bob smile even though it had been a hopeless laugh. The nine of them set there, squished as tightly together as they could be in two small mattresses, and waited for the gas to eventually be released.

 _So this is how it’s going to end,_ Ravenous sighed into their space. Bob didn’t know if he wanted to respond or not. On one hand, he couldn’t trust Ravenous ever again, not after the complete abandonment Bob had suffered. Even knowing that Doctor Adder had purposefully engineered it to that effect, Bob just couldn’t help but be _so angry_. On the other hand, if they were going to die, Bob kind of wanted to be at peace. He had his fucked up little family around him, and Frank’s charm wound tight around the fist pressed to Brian’s chest, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to die hating a whole part of who he was, now.

_I guess._

_Bug,_ Ravenous started, sounding as contrite as a monster as large and old as he could sound, _If I’d known she would come so early, I wouldn’t have slept. This has been no walk in the park for me, either._

 _Don’t,_ Bob swallowed, _You never should have attacked the doctor. You know that. You **knew** that._

 _I lost control_ , Ravenous agreed, _I promised you I wouldn’t, but I did. I’ll admit that. But I never would have abandoned you to her on purpose. You have to believe that._

 _I don’t believe anything you say, now,_ Bob admitted, _But we’re going to die. I don’t want to die resenting anything but Better Living. So I’ll forgive you._

 _How kind_ , Ravenous huffed, but it was enough. It wasn’t perfect between them, but it was close enough, now, that Bob wouldn’t regret anything.

“How long do you think it’ll take for the gas to get to our room?” Dallon asked, looking up from his place under Brent and Spencer, who had found comfortable places on top of him.

“Not long now.” Brian rested his chin on Bob’s head, “Waiting like this is nerve wracking.”  
“Someone’s coming,” Patrick set up, dropping his feet back to the floor, “They’re in a hurry.”

Bob pulled away from Brian and forced himself to stand up. Being gassed was one thing. He could handle it if they were murdered by air, because there was nothing he could do about that. Maybe he could live a little bit longer, Ravenous helping him out, but it wouldn’t be for _too_ long and he didn’t want to live anyway, if Brian and The Kids were dead.

Being gassed was one thing, but Better Living had another thing coming if they thought he was gonna let them get near any of them in person.”

“Bob,” Ryan grabbed his shirt, “What’s the point?”  
Bob squeezed his hand reassuringly, “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”

“Don’t worry, he says,” Spencer bitched, “ _Everything’ll_ be alright, he says.”  
“It will,” Brian promised, “Either way, we’re getting out of here. What’s wrong with taking a few of them with us, huh?”  
No one responded to that, so Bob straightened up in front of them. He felt Ravenous in his head, licking his teeth, ready to taste blood again.

“They’re here,” Patrick breathed, and the door flew open almost before he’d finished speaking.

A man, dressed all in black, older with glasses and straw pale hair, walked in with his zap drawn. Bob had never seen a Drac, or a scientist, with a _zap_ as a weapon before, but he figured that _cleanup_  would be a little armed differently than the everyday personnel.

“Is he here? Get out of the way, Elton!” A voice demanded from behind the new man, and the stranger was suddenly shoved away from the door, deeper into the room so a new man could walk in. He was much more confident, his steps filled with anger and leadership. His skin was tanned, his hair dark, and his eyes fucking black to match.

Ravenous reeled back, hissing, and Bob didn’t quite know how to respond to that.

“Sandman,” Patrick’s voice broke and he pushed passed Bob’s arm, not moving too far away, _just_ in case _,_ but close enough to get a better look, “Sandman!”  
“ _Patrick_ ,” Sandman, _Patrick’s_ Sandman, breathed out, like he’d never tasted a word so good in his mouth. Patrick launched himself at this Sandman and Sandman rushed forward to catch him. Bob watched, a little bemused and a lot confused, as they leaned into each other to kiss. It was desperate, scared and relieved all at once, and Bob felt a little like an intruder for watching, so he turned his eyes to _Elton_.

“Hi,” Elton nodded at them, a little awkwardly, “We’re the rescue.”

Bob looked back to Patrick, who was littering Sandman’s face with kisses and tears, saying something about wanting to see Pete, too. He watched Sandman nod and then his body go loose, eyes closing, just long enough for him to nearly fall over before he caught himself and opened his eyes again. They were _brown_ this time, and Bob didn’t know what to say to that. Did his eyes change? He hadn’t thought of it, before. Patrick’s eyes did, but Bob had thought that it was because Benzedrine was so powerful. But Pete’s did, too. Maybe it was something the three of them all had in common. He felt his knees go weak and he fell into the bed, into Brian.

“Oh, God, _Patrick_ , I’m so sorry, I’m _so sorry_ it took so long,”

“You came,” Patrick sobbed, laughing, “I told them you would, and I waited. I waited, and you’re here, now,”  
“Rescue,” Brian said softly, not quite sure how to make his voice sound. Bob didn’t either, so he just melted into Brian and tried not to cry.

“Rescue?” Brendon repeated, louder.

“Rescue,” Patrick agreed, turning a little to look at them, “Pete, these are my friends. They’re coming back with me.”  
His tone brooked no arguments, but Pete didn’t look willing to argue a single word.  
“Of course. Did they hurt you?”  
“Bob and Ravenous protected me.” Patrick shook his head, then hesitated, “There’s a lot I need to tell you. They didn’t hurt me but...but, they put something...in me. Like Sandman.”  
Pete froze. Legitimately completely went still. He didn’t even breathe, for a long, long minute.

“It’s okay,” Patrick promised, “I’ll tell you about it. Let’s just go. I want to _go_ , Pete, please,”

“Yeah,” Pete finally nodded, “Yeah, let’s get out of here. Elton, make sure they’re okay to move.”  
“We’re all fine,” Brian stopped Elton before he could move closer, “It would be better if he didn’t. Come near us, I mean.”  
“Ravenous is still,” Bob started, clutching at Brian’s knee, “He’s confused.”  
“It’s okay,” Patrick assured, moving away from Pete to offer his hand, “It’s okay. Just come with us.”  
Bob wanted to reach out, but there was a sudden terror in him. He couldn’t remember life outside of Linda Vista, except for Frankie. These walls were all he knew, the only way he knew how to survive. He wasn’t sure that this wasn’t just some elaborate hoax, that Doctor Death Adder was waiting right outside, ready to punish him for trying to escape. He was scared that this was a messed up fucking _dream_ , that he’d wake up from as soon as his fingers touched Patrick’s.

“Bob,” Brian pressed his face to Bob’s shoulders, his skin hot and alive. Real.

“Whatever you decide. We can stay here, let it end. We can go. I’m not leaving you.”

“Us, either,” Ryan reached out, gripped Bob’s arm, “We’re not leaving without you.”  
“Come on, Bob,” Patrick smiled, and all the stress and pain of the last week washed off of his face. He was safe now, and he knew it, and Bob wanted that feeling. he wanted to feel _safe_.

“Whatever you decide,” Brian repeated, “Your wish is my wish.”

Bob thought about it, by himself, because not even Ravenous would try to influence this for him.

He reached out.

The sun, what little broke through the purple clouds of the outside world, burned him. But, framing Patrick’s face, it created a halo. It was less sunlight and more the light of God, shining from Patrick - their _savior_. Bob felt something in his blood, pulling him in certain directions, towards the bleakness of the city surrounding them. He felt his heart tugging in his chest, Ravenous uncertain and almost scared. He’d never been in the world, either.

The building behind them, it was just a building. To Bob, to Ravenous, to all of them - except Patrick - it had been a whole universe. A place of pain and hopelessness, but still the only thing any of them knew, now. But it was _just a building._ White walls and windows. A sign atop the glass doorways, broken now from the rescue mission. Dracs lay along the hallways and the outside grass. It was just a _building_.

Bob thought of Frank, of the charm still wrapped firmly in his fingers, of Brian and The Kids behind him. Of Patrick, holding his hand and leading them all back into the light.

Bob was free. Bob wanted to _live_.

Bob was _going_ to live.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys so much for your patience and continued interest in my series!
> 
> NEXT: We Come Outside, They Run and Hide (In The Morning Sun, Baby, We Were Born To Run)  
> STATUS: Posted


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